If* 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


Please  make  the  following  corrections  — 

gth  page,  I2th  line  from  bottom,  for  mother  read  mothers, 
•jzd   page,  I2th  line,  for  a  letter  read  letters, 
iO4th  page,  loth  line,  for  1893  read  1883. 
i52d    page,    8th  line,  for  profession  read  procession. 


.  78. 


>omt  &eitunt0cettces  of  a  iUrn    iltft 


WITH   A   FEW  ARTICLES   ON   MORAL  AND   SOCIAL    SUBJECTS 
OF  PRESENT  INTEREST 


By  JOHN  HOOKER 

i/i 


$artfort>,  Conn. 

BELKNAP  &   WARFIELD 

1899 


CT17 


COPYRIGHT,  1899,  BY  JOHN  HOOKER. 


All  rights  resented. 


I  UKCOOOO  t  «••  K««0  M. 
«««tfO«0,  COHM. 


TO  I.  B.  H. 

WHOSE   ENLIGHTENING  AND  INSPIRING  COMPANIONSHIP 

FOR  OVER  HALF  A   CENTURY 
HAS   MADE   MY   LIFE  WELL  WORTH   LIVING   AND  FULL  OF   PLEASANT   MEMORIES, 

3  ©ebicate  tfoi 

J.  H. 


2012511 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

INTRODUCTION, 9 

TAKEN  BY  PIRATES 27 

FLORA  SLAVE  CASE, 3* 

SUI  GENERIS, 33 

THE  OX  THAT  RETURNED  FROM  TICONDEROGA,            ...  34 

MARTIN  CAIRNS, -  35 

HOW  I  BECAME  A  DOCTOR  OF  DIVINITY, 37 

THE  DOG-FIGHT  SUIT  OF  RHODES  vs.  WELLS,  41 

GIDEON  HALL, 45 

MARTIN  WELLES, 46 

CHARLES  CHAPMAN,      .  .  .48 

RICHARD  D.  HUBBARD,         ' 53 

MR.  HUBBARD'S  OBITUARY  ADDRESSES,        .  .  .63 

SAMUEL  BOWLES, 65 

SIRJSAMUEL  ROMILLY, 7» 

DR.  THOMAS  ARNOLD, 73 

WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS, 75 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  AND  REV.  DR.  PARKER,            ...  78 

SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY'S  FIFTIETH  BIRTHDAY,          ....  89 

THE  GREAT  ROTHSCHILD  AT  PARIS,     ....  QI 

REV.  DR.  BURTON, 92 

CAPT.  BAKER, 99 

THE  DANSVILLE  SANATORIUM, IOI 

LOOSING  THE  ASS,            .           .           . 106 

THE  ONION  STEALER, 107 

A  SUMMER  IN  GU1LFORD, IO8 

THE  WOMEN  FOUNDERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND,          .  .  .  .Ill 

THE  IDEAL  WOMAN, 113 

ADDRESS  AT  REV.  DR.  PORTER'S  SEMI-CENTENNIAL,  114 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

CHIEF  JUSTICES  WILLIAMS  AND  STORKS, Il8 

MY  DESIRE  FOR  A  JUDGESHIP, I2O 

MY  SUPREME  COURT  REPORTERSHIP, 124 

SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP,      ...  .129 

SOME  OF  MY  JUDICIAL  FRIENDS, 155 

JUDGE  HUNT  AND  THE  TRIAL  OF  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY,         .  .       I&3 

LIFE  AT  NOOK  FARM 170 

OUR  GOLDEN  WEDDING .173 

SOME  FURTHER  INTRODUCTORY  MATTER,  .  .  .  .  .185 

DAMON  AND  PYTHIAS, IQ7 

GROWTH  IN  UNSPIRITUALITY,       ...  ...       2OO 

DR.  JOHN  CHAPMAN, ,  .205 

THE  KEARSARGE, .       209 

SAMUEL  MOSELEY, .  .  .       214 

GENERAL  B., 219 

WILLIAM  H.  IMLAY, 222 

MY  BICYCLE  ACCIDENT, 225 

ANARCHY  AND  ITS  PHILOSOPHY, 228 

TAXATION, 232 

JOHN  HOOKER  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA,  .  .  .       237 

A  WORLD  POLICE, 241 

WOMAN  SUFFRAGE, 245 

SPIRITUALISM, 247 

SOME  BITS  OF  VERSE, 265 

CANDOR .275 

THE  PROGRESS  OF  WOMEN, 279 

MY  THEOLOGY, ' 281 

MY  RELIGION, 295 

THE  UPBUILDING  OF  A  STATE, .299 

APPEAL  TO  YOUNG  MEN 3°7 

A  FINAL  WORD, .      3™ 

APPENDIX, 

SOCIAL  LIFE  IN  FARMINGTON  EARLY  IN  THE  CENTURY,  .           .       313 

THE  EARLY  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT,     ....  .338 

MRS.  MARY  H.  BURTON'S  LETTER  TO  MRS.  AMES,  .      343 


PREFACE. 


I  HAVE  been  at  work  at  these  reminiscences  in  a  very 
leisurely  and  intermittent  way  for  the  past  two  years.  I  had  at 
first  an  idea  of  writing  a  series  of  articles  for  one  of  the  Hart- 
ford papers,  which  would  be  sure  of  a  local  acceptance  and  not 
invite  any  critical  notice,  in  which  I  should  give  my  recollec- 
tions of  some  men  and  things  that  had  fallen  within  my  obser- 
vation or  experience.  But  I  had  not  gone  far  in  gathering  ma- 
terials for  this  purpose  before  the  idea,  aided  by  frequent  and 
most  friendly  suggestions  from  my  friends,  grew  into  that  of 
a  book.  So  I  began  upon  the  present  work,  printing  as  I 
went,  indeed  printing  the  introduction  before  I  had  written 
much  else.  It  has  been  a  pleasant  occupation  of  many  spare 
hours,  but  with  not  infrequent  doubts  whether  the  book  would 
interest  the  public  or  be  any  credit  to  me.  I  knew  at  the  out- 
set that  with  my  unobserved  life  within  the  narrow  domain 
of  the  law,  wholly  out  of  the  way  of  knowing  the  men  who  are 
most  before  the  public  eye  and  impress  themselves  most  on 
the  public  observation,  I  could  not  expect  to  interest  anybody 
but  the  few  who  knew  me  -personally,  and  perhaps  the  men  of 
my  own  profession  throughout  the  state ;  and  as  I  progressed 
with  the  work  I  have  repeatedly  felt  like  stopping  where  I  was 
and  abandoning  the  whole  undertaking,  giving  what  I  had 
written  to  our  city  papers.  Still,  I  kept  on  until  I  became 
satisfied  that  I  could  not  fill  the  volume  with  matters  purely" 
reminiscent,  and  I  decided  to  avail  myself  of  the  opportunity 
which  the  space  thus  left  gave  me  to  insert  some  brief  articles 
on  subjects,  mainly  moral  and  social,  now  pending  before  the 


viii  PREFACE. 

public,  in  which  I  felt  a  deep  interest.  When  the  body  of  the 
book  had  been  printed  I  put  the  sheets  into  the  hands  of  my 
greatly-esteemed  friend,  Dr.  Henry  Barnard,  to  read.  He 
had  frequently  before  expressed  much  interest  in  my  work. 
He  is  six  years  older  than  I,  has  been  all  his  life  a  leader  and 
authority  throughout  the  country  in  educational  matters,  and 
is  greatly  interested  in  all  matters  of  state  and  local  history. 
A  few  weeks  later  he  wrote  me  as  follows:  "  June  i,  1899. 
Dear  Mr.  Hooker :  The  advance  sheets  of  your  '  Reminis- 
cences '  have  proved  most  interesting.  In  fact,  I  have  read 
nothing  else  since  they  came  into  my  hands.  Very  many  of 
the  pages  I  could  easily  adopt  as  a  better  expression  of  my 
own  recollections  of  men  and  affairs  than  I  should  be  able  to 
produce.  .  .  .  The  book  I  am  sure  will  pass  into  the  per- 
manent historical  literature  of  Connecticut."  With  this  great 
encouragement  I  have  better  heart  for  submitting  my  book  to 
the  criticism  of  the  public. 

Mr.  Julius  Gay  of  Farmington,  a  gentleman  of  great  intel- 
ligence with  regard  to  local  and  state  history,  has,  at  my  re- 
quest, prepared  an  article  on  the  social  life  of  Farmington  in 
the  early  part  of  this  century,  which  is  printed  in  the  appendix. 
I  am  sure  it  will  be  read  with  much  interest,  and  it  is  particu- 
larly pertinent  to  these  Reminiscences  as  it  was  in  that  village 
that  all  my  early  life  was  passed. 


INTRODUCTION. 


In  compiling  and  preparing  for  the  press  these  reminis- 
cences of  my  life,  I  have  not  attempted  to  place  them  in  chrono- 
logical order,  nor  indeed  to  make  them  auto-biographical. 
They  are  largely  made  up  of  what  I  have  observed  of  men  and 
occurrences  in  the  quite  limited  space  in  social  life  in  which  I 
have  moved,  with  something  of  my  own  experiences  and  with 
occasional  rambles  into  the  world  of  "humor,  on  the  edge  of 
which  I  have  always  lived.  I  shall  devote  but  a  few  introduc- 
tory pages  to  my  own  early  life,  which  will  probably  interest 
few  but  my  near  friends,  and,  perhaps,  the  good  people  of 
Farmington,  among  whom  I  was  born  and  brought  up,  so  that 
those  who  have  known  me  in  my  later  professional  life  may 
find  it  more  interesting  to  omit  wholly  this  introductory  chap- 
ter and  begin  at  once  at  the  one  which  follows. 

I  was  born  in  the  town  of  Farmington,  Connecticut,  April 
iQth,  1816.  My  father  was  Edward  Hooker,  who  was  the  fifth 
in  direct  descent  from  Thomas  Hooker,  the  first  minister  of  the 
First  (now  Center)  Church  of  Hartford,  and  whose  son  Samuel 
was  the  second  minister  of  the  church  in  Farmington,  whose 
pastorate  of  thirty-six  years  closed  with  his  death  in  1697.  My 
mother  was  Eliza  Daggett  of  Xew  Haven,  who  was  first  cousin 
of  the  mother  of  Roger  S.  Baldwin,  Governor  of  Connecticut, 
of  William  M.  Evarts,  and  of  Senator  and  Judge  Hoar  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, all  of  whom  thus  became  my  second  cousins.  My 
father  graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1805,  and  was  afterwards 
a  tutor  there,  and  in  the  South. Carolina  College  at  Columbia, 
South  Carolina,  finally  settling  in  Farmington,  where  for  a  few 
years  he  kept  a  private  classical  school,  and  later  retired  from 
all  active  employment,  except  that  of  cultivating  an  extensive 
farm  which  he  had  inherited.  He  died  in  1845,  at  the  a§"e  °f  61. 

I  was  married  on  the  5th  of  August,  1841,  to  Isabella,  the 
youngest  daughter  of  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher.  She  is  still 
living  (1897).  "We  have  had  four  children,  two  of  whom,  Dr. 


I0  REMINISCENCES. 

Edward  Beecher  Hooker  and  Alice,  wife  of  John  C.  Day,  are 
living.  Of  the  others,  one,  Thomas,  died  soon  after  birth,  and 
Mary,  afterwards  Mrs.  Henry  E.  Burton,  died  in  1886,  aged  40. 
We  celebrated  our  golden  wedding  on  the  5th  of  August,  1891. 
I  shall  speak  of  that  occasion  more  fully  in  the  body  of  the 
book. 

I  attended  the  district  school  of  my  native  town  until  I  was 
about  ten,  when  I  entered  the  Farmington  Academy,  kept  by 
Simeon  Hart,  a  noted  teacher  of  the  time,  where  I  fitted  for 
college,  entering  Yale  college  when  I  was  sixteen.  My  prep- 
aration for  college  was  greatly  aided  by  the  private  instruction 
of  my  father,  who  was  a  rare  classical  scholar  for  that  day,  and 
who  began  to  drill  me  in  Latin  and  Greek  at  quite  an  early  age. 
My  college  course,  however,  was  never  completed.  I  was  taken 
ill  before  the  close  of  my  second  year,  and  had  a  long  course  of 
typhoid  fever,  upon  my  recovery  from  which  I  began  too  early 
the  attempt,  by  hard  study,  to  overtake  my  class,  the  result 
being  an  injury  to  my  eyes  that  compelled  me  to  discontinue 
my  studies,  and  has  afflicted  me  all  my  life.  The  college,  later, 
granted  me  a  degree.  My  class  graduated  in  1837,  and  my 
name  stands  with  the  rest  on  the  catalogue. 

In  my  uncertainty  what  to  do,  and  in  the  probability  that 
I  should  have  to  follow  an  active  outdoor  life,  and  in  the  hope, 
too,  of  benefiting  my  general  health,  I  went  on  two  voyages, 
one  to  the  Mediterranean  and  one  to  China,  both  before  the 
mast.  On  our  return  voyage  from  China,  when  in  the  mid- 
Atlantic,  near  the  latitude  of  the  lower  West  India  Islands, 
our  vessel  was  overhauled  and  taken  possession  of  by  a  Portu- 
guese pirate.  I  devote  a  chapter  to  this  adventure  in  the  body 
of  the  book. 

After  my  two  years  of  sea  life  I  took  up  the  study  of  law, 
and  was  admitted  to  the  Hartford  County  Bar  in  1841.  I 
opened  an  office  in  Farmington,  was  married  later  in  the  same 
year,  and  resided  there  until  the  fall  of  1851,  when  I  removed 
to  Hartford,  where  I  have  lived  ever  since. 

In  January,  1858,  I  was  appointed  by  the  judees  of  our 
Supreme  Court  the  reporter  of  the  court,  which  office  I  held 
until  January  i.  1894,  thirtv-six  years.  With  the  surrender  of 
this  office  I  retired  from  all  business,  and  have  since  been  en- 


INTRODUCTION.  1 1 

joying  the  quiet  and  peaceful  life  of  one  whose  work  is  done, 
and  who,  in  full  readiness,  is  waiting  for  the  summons  to  a 
higher  life. 

I  will,  in  this  introductory  chapter,  give  a  little  account  of 
old  Farmington  and  of  the  people  and  their  country  habits  as 
I  saw  them  in  my  boyhood.  The  changes  in  social  conditions 
and  habits  since  then  are  undoubtedly  greater  than  all  the 
changes  from  the  early  settlement  of  the  country  down  to  that 
time. 

Those  who  have  visited  the  village  of  Farmington  have 
been  struck  by  its  exceeding  beauty  of  situation.  It  lies  along 
the  lower  slope  of  a  mountain  side,  with  a  broad  and  green 
meadow  of  rich  cultivated  land  below,  through  which  winds  a 
river  of  considerable  size,  with  its  banks  fringed  by  a  growth 
of  trees.  I  think  I  am  not  extravagant  in  saying  that  few  hills 
ever  looked  down  upon  a  more  lovely  valley,  and  few  valleys 
ever  looked  up  to  more  beautiful  hills.  Here  my  eye  learned 
very  early  to  dwell  with  delight  upon  the  view  of  mountain  and 
meadow  that  constantly  met  it.  My  father  was  a  great  lover 
of  beautiful  scenery,  and  early  cultivated  in  me  a  love  of  nature 
that  has  all  my  life  been  to  me  what  a  love  of  fine  music  is  to  a 
cultivated  ear. 

The  beauty  of  the  village  is  greatly  increased  by  the  fine 
trees  along  its  principal  streets.  It  is  a  pleasant  reflection  to 
me  that  a  large  part  of  these  trees  were  planted  by  me  or 
through  my  instrumentality  in  my  boyhood  and  early  man- 
hood. I  do  not  include  a  few  very  large  old  trees  that  are  still 
standing.  I  was  an  enthusiast  with  regard  to  such  improve- 
ments, and  persuaded  other  boys  to  join  with  me  in  much  of  the 
work,  particularly  that  on  Main  street.  All  the  trees  on  High 
street  and  the  New  Britain  road  were  planted  by  me  without 
their  help. 

The  stately  and  venerable  church  still  stands  upon  the  vil- 
lage street,  well  along  in  years  when  I  attended  it  as  a  boy,  but 
hardly  touched  yet  by  decay.  Social  changes  have  affected  it, 
but  nature  has  dealt  with  it  very  kindly.  It  was  built  in  1771, 
and  to  this  day,  over  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years,  the 
cedar  shingles  which  were  then  put  upon  the  roof  are  doing 
good  service  still.  So  much  for  honest  material  and  honest 


12  REMINISCENCES. 

builders.     I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  record  the  fact  that  my 
grandfather  was  one  of  the  building  committee. 

The  pews  in  my  boyhood  were  all  square,  with  high  straight 
backs,  very  uncomfortable  to  hold  one's  self  up  against.  There 
were  no  stoves  or  other  mode  of  heating,  but  the  house  was  in 
winter  literally  as  cold  as  a  barn.  Every  family  carried  a  foot- 
stove,  which  was  passed  along  from  one  to  another,  while 
heavy  overcoats  and  shawls  did  what  they  could  for  our  com- 
fort. It  was  my  regular  business,  when  I  got  old  enough,  to 
carry  the  footstove,  and  I  once,  in  a  crowded  state  of  our  pew. 
had  to  sit  on  it,  absorbing  for  the  time,  and  quite  uncomfort- 
ably, the  heat  that  was  intended  for  the  pew-full.  The  clergy- 
man often  preached  in  his  overcoat.  One  advantage  of  the 
chilling  atmosphere  was  that  he  had  to  gesticulate  a  good  deal 
to  keep  himself  warm,  thus  making  his  delivery  more  impres- 
sive. We  had  at  the  time  the  high  box  pulpit,  and  it  was  prob- 
ably on  one  of  the  cold  days  that  a  specially  active  and  earnest 
preacher,  who  turned  one  way  and  the  other  in  the  narrow  pul- 
pit as  he  vociferated  toward  the  different  quarters  of  the  house, 
excited  the  wonder  of  a  little  girl  who  was  taken  to  church  for 
the  first  time,  and  who  asked  her  mother  on  the  way  home 
why  they  didn't  let  that  man  out,  when  he  was  trying  so  hard 
to  get  out  and  was  hollering  so.  There  was  also,  while  the  old 
pulpit  remained,  a  huge  sounding-board  right  over  it,  which  I 
used  to  look  at  with  childish  wonder,  sometimes  thinking  it 
might  come  down  on  the  preacher,  but  more  often  thinking 
of  it  as  an  image  of  heaven,  or  of  some  heavenly  thing,  placed 
there  for  its  moral  effect.  It  disappeared  with  the  old  pulpit. 
but  whether  it  came  down  or  went  up  I  never  quite  knew. 
Modern  slips  also  early  took  the  place  of  the  old  pews.  It  was 
all  well  to  have  these  changes  made,  but  there  was  one  that  I 
look  back  upon  with  great  regret.  I  remember  well  the  crown, 
brass  or  gilded,  that  was  on  the  top  of  the  steeple.  We  were  a 
colony  of  Great  Britain  when  the  church  was  built,  and  the 
people  placed  the  crown  there  as  a  token  of  their  loyalty,  and 
there  it  had  stood  for  nearly  or  quite  fifty  years  after  we  had 
won  our  independence.  After  so  long  a  time  it  had  ceased  to 
be  an  offensive  reminder  of  royalty  and  had  become  only  a  very 
interesting  relic,  and  it  would  have  grown  more  and  more  in- 


IN  TROD  UCTION.  1 3 

teresting  with  the  passing  years.  If  the  people  of  the  town  had 
it  there  to-day  they  would  not  part  with  it  for  its  weight  in  gold. 
But  some  foolish  democratic  whim  tore  it  down.  I  forget  what 
year  it  was,  but  I  must  have  been  ten  years  old,  which  would 
make  it  as  late  as  1826.  But  if  the  crown  had  to  come  down, 
it  is  a  marvel  that  nobody  felt  an  interest  in  preserving  it.  It 
should  have  gone  to  the  historical  society.  As  it  was,  it  dis- 
appeared and  has  never  since  been  seen.  The  old  pulpit  I 
remember  seeing  in  the  rear  of  a  house  opposite  to  the  old 
cemetery,  where  it  was  used  for  some  domestic  purpose,  a  hen- 
house, or  something  of  the  sort,  and  probably  it  has  long  ago 
gone  for  firewood. 

The  old  church,  then  known  to  us  only  as  the  "  meeting- 
house," was  well  filled  every  Sunday.  People  came  from  a 
great  distance,  and  the  teams  which  brought  them  were  tied 
to  posts  on  the  edge  of  the  green.  The  present  horse  sheds 
were  built  many  years  later.  People  came  from  what  is  now 
Plainville,  from  White  Oak  district,  from  Unionville,  and  from 
the  Avon  road,  more  than  half  the  way  to  Avon.  Avon  was 
then  a  part  of  Farmington,  and  was  called  Northington.  There 
were  in  the  rear  of  the  church  two  small  one-story  houses,  be- 
longing to  the  ecclesiastical  society,  called  originally  "  Sab- 
bath-Day Houses,"  but  in  my  boyhood  called  "  Sabba-day 
Houses,"  where  the  people  from  out  of  town  used  to  go  on 
Sunday  noons  to  eat  their  lunches.  There  were  open  fireplaces 
and  great  wood  fires,  and  it  must  have  been  not  only  very  com- 
fortable after  sitting  all  the  forenoon  in  the  freezing  air  of  the 
church,  but  very  pleasant  socially,  as  the  farmers  and  their 
wives  met  and  exchanged  gossip.  These  houses  were  aban- 
doned after  the  church  was  warmed.  For  a  while  they  were 
let  to  poor  families;  one,  I  remember,  was  occupied  by  a  negro 
family  for  a  while,  but  I  do  not  remember  what  finally  became 
of  them. 

Rev.  Dr.  Porter,  then  plain  Mr.  Porter,  was  the  pastor  of 
the  church  when  I  was  born.  He  baptized  me,  as  he  did  also 
my  son.  In  the  record  of  his  baptisms  stands,  in  1816,  "  John, 
son  of  Edward  Hooker,"  and  in  1855,  "  Edward,  son  of  John 
Hooker."  When  my  son  was  baptized  my  wife  and  I  were 
members  of  the  Fourth  Church  in  Hartford,  but,  with  the  ac- 


I4  REMINISCENCES. 

quiescence  of  our  pastor  there,  we  brought  him  to  Farming- 
ton,  that  he  might  be  baptized  by  our  beloved  Dr.  Porter.  It 
is  a  remarkable  fact  that  Dr.  Porter  was  a  Farmington  boy, 
and  his  first  settlement  was  here  in  his  native  town,  and  here  he 
continued  his  pastorate  for  over  fifty  years,  dying  here  in  a 
good  old  age,  and  buried  here  among  his  people.  He  was  a 
great  man;  not  an  orator,  but  a  thinker,  a  calm,  clear-headed, 
self-sustained  expounder  of  Christian  truth.  If  he  had  been  a 
lawyer  he  might  have  made  a  great  chief  justice. 

He  used  to  come  to  the  district  school  that  I  attended  and 
catechize  us  on  Saturdays.  We  got  so  that  we  could  reel  off 
the  greater  part  of  the  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism,  though 
we  sometimes  made  blunders,  as  where  one  boy  that  I  was  told 
of,  in  answer  to  the  question  "  What  is  baptism?  "  replied  that 
it  was  "  an  outward  and  miserable  sign  of  inward  sanctifica- 
tion." 

It  was  the  day  of  doctrinal  preaching,  and  I  once  heard 
Dr.  Porter  say  to  my  father  that  he  intended  to  preach  one 
doctrinal  sermon  every  Sunday.  There  were  then  two  regular 
sermons  in  the  forenoon  and  afternoon  of  Sunday,  and  an  ex- 
temporaneous address  in  the  evening;  a  pretty  severe  demand 
upon  both  body  and  brain  of  the  preacher. 

It  was  a  beautiful  incident  of  Dr.  Porter's  pastorate,  that 
from  his  birth  in  Farmington,  and  his  long  settlement  in  the 
ministry  there,  he  came  to  know  the  family  histories,  and  he 
was  often  very  felicitous  in  his  remarks  at  funerals  and  wed- 
dings. At  the  latter  he  would  often  say  to  the  bride,  and  per- 
haps to  both,  I  married  your  father  and  mother,  and  at  funerals 
he  would  have  some  most  tender  remembrances  of  the  early 
life  of  the  one  who  had  passed  away.  I  remember  that,  at  the 
funeral  of  an  old  man  who  had  been  poor  and  thriftless  and  un- 
respected,  but  whom  Dr.  Porter  had  known  from  his  boyhood, 
he  gave  a  quiet  reminiscent  talk  that  could  hardly  have  been 
surpassed  for  pathos  and  tenderness.  He  always  at  funerals 
found  something  interesting  to  say  of  everybody.  He  did  not 
seem  to  fall  back  on  his  ingenuity,  but  on  his  early  memories  * 
and  lifelong  acquaintance. 

One  remark  of  Dr.  Porter  at  a  prayer-meeting  greatly  im- 
pressed me  at  the  time,  and  has  dwelt  with  me  as  a  comforter 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

all  my  life.  Our  weekly  church  prayer-meetings  were  held 
on  Thursday  afternoons,  the  daytime  being  taken  to  enable 
the  church  members  who  lived  at  a  distance  to  attend.  I  made 
it  a  rule  to  attend  when  I  was  able.  But  as  my  business  in- 
creased, and  very  often  called  me  away  from  home,  my  attend- 
ance became  infrequent.  At  one  of  the  meetings  I  expressed 
my  regret  that  I  was  not  able  to  attend  the  meetings  more,  but 
that  it  seemed  out  of  the  question  for  me  to  do  so,  upon  which 
Dr.  Porter  got  up  and  said,  "  There  is  a  passage  in  the  Psalms 
that  our  brother  ought  to  bear  in  mind.  It  is,  '  Blessed  is  he 
that  condemneth  not  himself  in  that  which  he  alloweth.'  A 
great  many  people  cannot  get  time  for  religious  exercises  with- 
out neglecting  other  imperative  duties.  A  mother  is  busy  from 
morning  till  late  bedtime,  attending  to  her  children  and  her 
family  duties,  and  cannot  get  the  half-hour  that  she  greatly  de- 
sires for  reading  her  Bible  and  for  prayer.  Well,  don't  let  her 
worry  about  it.  Let  her  do  faithfully  her  family  work,  and  if 
she  can  get  no  time  for  anything  else,  let  her  not  condemn  her- 
self, but  make  up  her  mind  to  allow  these  unavoidable  duties 
to  take  all  her  time." 

My  father  was  very  fond  of  Dr.  Porter,  and  for  a  great  part 
of  his  life  was  one  of  his  deacons.  He  was  himself  worthy  of  a 
sympathetic  and  respectful  notice,  but,  as  his  son,  I  will  say 
only  a  few  words  about  him,  and  those  only  with  regard  to 
matters  that  illustrate  the  early  times  in  which  I  lived.  He  was 
very  particular  about  all  religious  observances,  always  having 
family  prayers  in  the  morning  and  evening.  He  used,  at  the 
morning  service,  to  read  from  Scott's  commentaries  on  the 
Bible,  taking  each  division  of  the  comments  on  the  chapter  he 
read,  namely,  "  notes  "  and  "  practical  observations."  This 
made  the  service  rather  long,  and.  as  I  thought  it  then,  rather 
dull :  but  my  young  mind  took  in  a  great  manv  religious  im- 
pressions that  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  lived  without.  We  al- 
wavs  kept  Saturday  nigrht  as  a  part  of  Sunday,  and  Sunday 
night  as  the  beginning  of  week-day  life,  and  a  "happy  deliver- 
ance from  the  confinement  and  risror  of  Sunday.  I  remember 
how  I  used  to  watch  at  the  western  window  for  the  setting  of 
the  sun,  and  used  to  think  it  an  unkind  ordinance  of  nature 
that  made  the  sun  set  so  late  in  the  lovely  summer  days,  when 
we  so  wanted  to  be  out. 


!6  REMINISCENCES. 

My  father  was  an  open-minded  man,  and  wished  to  know 
the  truth,  especially  in  public  affairs,  and  he  took  the  Connecti- 
cut Conrant  and  the  Hartford  Times,  both  weeklies,  (there  were 
no  dailies  then,  not  even  in  New  York,  I  think,)  and  we,  his 
children,  grew  up  to  read  both  papers  to  see  what  each  side  had 
to  say.  Perhaps  this  is  the  reason  that  I  have  never  been  able 
to  be  much  of  a  partisan.  I  never  cared  much  for  names.  I 
wanted  the  right  thing  done,  and  was  always  willing  to  help 
any  party  do  it. 

Among  the  old  men  whom  I  remember  seeing  in  my  boy- 
hood, no  one  was  more  notable  than  Gov.  Treadwell.  He  lived 
in  a  red  house  close  by  the  large  rock  in  the  front  part  of  the 
Norton  place.  I  remember  once  calling  at  his  house  with  a 
line  from  my  father,  when  I  saw  him  at  dinner,  which  he  left 
for  a  few  minutes  to  attend  to  me  and  my  message.  I  could 
not  have  been  over  ten  years  old.  I  think  he  died  very  soon 
after. 

As  to  remembering  old  people,  I  find  that  I  have  seen  a 
person  who  must  have  seen  a  person  who  saw  the  first  settlers. 
My  grandfather  on  my  mother's  side,  Henry  Daggett,  was  born 
in  1740,  and  died  at  the  age  of  90  in  1830.  He  could  easily 
have  seen  in  his  boyhood  some  very  old  person  who  in  his  boy- 
hood had  seen  the  first  settlers.  This  seems  to  bring  them  very 
near  to  us  —  but  three  lives  between. 

It  was  while  I  was  a  school  boy  that  the  Farmington  Canal 
was  devised  and  constructed.  It  ran  from  New  Haven  to 
Northampton  in  Massachusetts.  I  remember  well  Mr.  James 
Hillhouse  of  New  Haven,  who  was  one  of  its  principal  pro- 
moters, going  through  Farmington  with  a  large  boat  on  wheels 
drawn  by  several  pairs  of  horses,  full  of  New  Haven  gentle- 
men, with  a  band  of  musicians  and  flags  flying.  I  think  they 
stopped  over  night  at  our  village,  and  the  next  day  went  on  to 
other  towns  on  the  route.  This  I  suppose  to  have  been  before 
the  canal  was  made,  and  to  get  up  an  enthusiasm  for  it.  The 
canal  was  used  quite  largely  by  people  who  were  passing  be- 
tween New  Haven  and  the  towns  on  the  route.  I  have  gone 
to  New  Haven  by  it  with  my  father  when  the  boat  was  well 
filled  with  passengers.  It  was  not  long,  however,  before  it 
was  found  to  be  poorly  supported,  and  finally  its  bed  was  taken 
for  the  canal  railroad,  and  the  canal,  as  such,  was  abandoned. 


IN  TROD  UCTION.  \  7 

The  digging  of  this  canal  brought  the  first  Irishmen  that 
our  state  had  known  to  do  the  work.  I  remember  well  the 
first  one  I  saw.  I  was  on  my  way  to  school  when  I  met  him. 
He  stopped  and  said  to  me,  in  a  brogue  I  could  hardly  under- 
stand, "  Do  you  know  who  I  am?  "  I  told  him  I  did  not. 
"  Well,"  said  he,  "  I  am  a  wild  Irishman,  just  over."  I  told  of 
this  when  I  got  home,  as  I  would  if  I  had  seen  a  wild  zebra  in 
the  street. 

Among  the  interesting  things  that  I  remember  is  the  post- 
master and  postal  service  of  my  early  life.    Dea.  Samuel  Rich- 
ards was  the  postmaster,  a  picturesque  object  in  the  social  land- 
scape and  in  my  memory.     He  wras  tall  and  slim,  and  very 
straight,   wearing  the  old  knee-breeches  that  then  lingered 
among  the  survivors  of  an  earlier  time.     He  was  very  precise 
in  his  manner,  and  punctilious  in  the  discharge  of  his  official,  re- 
ligious, and  social  duties.     He  lived  in  a  large  house  near  the 
north  end  of  the  street,  and  the  post-office  was  in  his  front  hall. 
1  often  went  there  to  carry  or  get  letters.    The  letters  that  were 
waiting  to  be  called  for  were  stuck  into  tapes  that  were  tacked 
crosswise  upon  the  wall.     I  remember  his  telling  my  father 
that  they  hoped  soon  to  have  a  mail  twice  a  week  to  New  York. 
I  infer  that  there  was  then  only  a  weekly  mail  there.    There  was 
then  and  for  a  long  time  after  a  mail  every  other  day  to  New 
Haven.    A  stage  started  at  Hartford  and  passed  through  Farm- 
ington,  and  went  thence  to  New7  Haven,  carrying  the  mail, 
going  one  day  and  returning  the  next.    Postages  were  graded 
according  to  distance,  and  were  a  great  burden  upon  business 
and  friendly  correspondence.    To  any  western  town  (and  even 
the  middle  states  were  then  "  the  West "),  the  postage  was 
twenty-five  cents,  with  eighteen  and  three-fourths,  twelve  and 
one-half,  and  six  and  one-fourth  for  shorter  distances.     This 
continued  clown  to  1840.    The  young  lady  to  whom  I  was  en- 
gaged to  be  married  lived  in  Cincinnati,  and  we  exchanged  let- 
ters every  week.    Prepayment  was  not  then  required,  so  that  I 
had  to  pay  my  own  postage  and  hers.     As  each  letter  was 
twenty-five  cents,  it  cost  me  half  a  dollar  a  week,  where  now 
the  postage  would  be  but  four  cents.    Still,  I  think  it  was  a  good 
investment.    A  curious  feature  of  the  system  then  existing  was 
that  a  separate  postal  charge  was  made  for  every  piece  of  paper 


IS  REMINISCENCES. 

contained  in  the  letter.  You  were  constantly  asked,  when  you 
brought  a  letter  to  be  mailed,  whether  there  was  more  than  one 
piece  of  paper.  It  was  impossible  for  the  officials  to  discover, 
and  so  there  was  a  great  temptation  to  lie  about  it,  and  prob- 
ably a  great  deal  of  lying  was  done.  The  absurdity  of  the  rule 
was  in  requiring  two  separate  bits  of  paper,  no  matter  how 
small,  to  pay  double  postage,  and  yet  allowing  very  large 
sheets,  no  matter  how  large,  to  go  for  single  postage.  This 
led  to  a  common  device  in  scattered  families,  of  starting  large 
sheets  with  all  the  family  news,  and  passing  them  along  till 
they  had  gone  the  rounds  of  the  family,  each  one  adding  its  own 
news. 

Among  the  things  that  greatly  interested  me  as  a  boy  were 
the  annual  militia  trainings.  These  were  held  on  the  "  green," 
the  large  open  space  in  front  of  and  about  the  "  meeting-house." 
There  was  a  very  impressive  looking  company  of  "  grena- 
diers," in  brilliant  uniforms,  a  company  of  troopers,  and  a  large 
company  of  "  militia,"  of  all  sorts  of  arms  and  all  varieties  and 
conditions  of  clothing.  The  training  lasted  all  day.  The  sol- 
diers brought  their  own  dinners,  except  that  large  pails  of 
punch  or  some  other  very  palatable  preparation  of  liquor,  were 
brought  upon  the  ground,  which  we  boys  were  always  allowed 
a  good  drink  of.  This  was  before  the  temperance  movement 
was  started  or  had  made  much  headway.  While  the  troopers 
were  eating  their  luncheons,  we  boys  were  allowed  to  get  on 
their  horses  and  gallop  about  the  streets.  They  were  generally 
old  farm  horses,  and  often  jaded  ones,  but  their  gay  trappings 
made  them  seem  to  us  like  veritable  war  horses. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  liquor-drinking  habit  of  the  mili- 
tiamen. It  was  the  general  habit.  I  remember  well  riding  in 
a  cart  one  day  with  our  principal  workman,  when  he  took  a 
swig  from  a  rum  bottle,  which  he  always  took  with  him  when 
he  went  off  for  a  day's  work,  and  his  saying,  as  he  set  the  bottle 
clown,  "  What  could,  we  do  without  rum?  A  man  can  do  twice 
as  much  work  with  it  as  he  could  without  it." 

There  are  few  things  in  which  a  greater  change  has  been 
made  than  in  the  modes  of  starting  our  fires,  as  well  as  of 
making  a  light.  In  my  boyhood  we  had  no  matches  but  sul- 
phur ones,  made  at  home,  which  we  used  with  flint  and  tinder- 


IN  TROD  UCTION.  !  9 

box.  We  always  took  great  pains  to  provide  at  night  for  a 
morning  bed  of  coals  in  the  kitchen  fireplace.  Our  cook- 
ing was  then,  and  for  a  long  time  after,  done  in  an  open 
fireplace,  the  baking  being  done  in  a  large  oven.  If,  as  often 
happened,  a  family  got  out  of  live  coals,  some  one  went  to  a 
neighbor's  with  a  fire  shovel  to  get  coals  enough-  to  start  a  fire. 
I  remember  the  first  matches  that  I  ever  saw.  I  was  a  school 
boy,  and  one  of  the  older  boys  brought  to  one  of  our  evening 
entertainments  a  new  mode  of  striking  a  light,  at  which  we  all 
looked  with  the  greatest  curiosity.  There  wras  a  case  holding 
a  quantity  of  matches,  and  a  phial,  into  which  the  match  was 
dipped,  when  it  at  once  began  to  blaze.  I  doubt  whether  the 
telephone  when  it  came  seemed  to  the  people  a  greater  advance 
than  those  matches  seemed  on  the  old  mode  of  making  a  light. 

There  was  a  very  pleasant,  but  simple,  social  life  in  my 
early  days  in  Farmington.  Neighbors  came  in  frequently  to 
sit  and  chat  of  an  evening,  when  apples  and  walnuts  were  al- 
ways brought  out,  together  \vith  cider,  of  which  every  cellar 
had  a  good  supply.  The  monthly  meetings  at  the  village  H-. 
brary,  held  on  Sunday  evening,  were  a  special  time  for  the 
meeting  of  the  elders,  who  spent  the  evening  together  in  the 
librarian's  parlor,  while  the  kitchen  was  occupied  by  us  boys. 
Family  visits  were  common.  Near  relatives  of  my  father  and 
mother  used  to  come  every  year,  bringing  their  entire  families, 
and  staying  several  days,  and  \ve  returned  the  visits  in  the  same 
way. 

I  was  born  in  the  closing  years  of  what  Dr.  Bushnell  has 
called  "  The  Age  of  Homespun,"  but  clearly  within  that  age. 
The  people  living  in  the  village  of  Farmington  were  mostly 
farmers,  and  all  of  whatever  calling  were  more  or  less  engaged 
in  farming.  The  lands  that  constituted  the  farms  lay  in  part 
on  the  mountain  and  in  part  in  the  broad  meadows.  The  latter 
were  used  mainly  for  hay  and  for  planting;  the  mountain  land 
was  used  for  pasturage,  orchards,  and  woodlands.  The  families 
made  and  consumed  their  own  butter  and  cheese,  and  raised 
their  own  pork,  and,  to  a  considerable  extent,  their  beef  and 
mutton.  My  father  kept  a  large  flock  of  sheep,  and  the  spring 
washing  and  shearing  was  quite  an  event  for  us  boys.  The 
wool  was  sent  to  the  carding  and  fulling  mills,  and  the  cloth 


20  REMINISCENCES. 

made  up  for  our  winter  clothes.  A  tailoress  came  around  regu- 
larly to  make  them  up  for  us.  We  knew  little  of  fashions, 
especially  of  any  change  in  them,  and  it  was  not  till  near  the 
time  I  went  to  college  that  I  began  to  have  tailor-made  clothes. 
My  father  always  had  a  tailor-made  suit  for  Sundays,  which 
would  last  him  several  years.  Such  a  thing  as  ready-made  suits 
was  never  heard  of.  The  wool,  when  it  had  been  carded,  was 
brought  back  to  the  house  to  be  spun.  We  kept  a  large  spin- 
ning wheel  in  the  kitchen  or  near  it,  at  which  a  woman,  hired 
for  the  purpose,  spun  the  rolls  into  yarn,  from  which  our  stock- 
ings were  knit  by  the  women  of  the  family.  Knitting  was  a  uni- 
versal industry  among  the  women,  and  when  they  were  spend- 
ing an  afternoon  or  evening  together  they  all  brought  their 
knitting.  Quilting  parties  were  also  very  frequent  and  very 
lively.  The  ladies  of  the  first  families  used  all  to  spin.  My  own 
mother,  though  well  educated  and  refined,  and  coming  from 
one  of  the  best  families  in  New  Haven,  would  frequently  spend 
an  hour  at  the  spinning-wheel.  Pumpkin  pies  were  a  great 
.favorite.  Large  crops  of  pumpkins  were  raised  in  the  meadows 
among  the  corn.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  a  squash  pie, 
or  even  a  winter  squash,  till  I  was  a  grown  man.  Anthracite 
coal  was  then  unknown,  and  cooking  stoves  were  a  novelty 
and  very  rare.  We  had  a  large  kitchen  fireplace,  and  wood 
fires  about  the  house  in  open  fireplaces,  consuming  a  great 
quantity  of  wood,  all  furnished  by  our  woodland.  My  father's 
house  was  one  of  abundance,  yet  it  could  hardly  be  surpassed 
for  simplicity  of  living. 

There  used  to  be  several  lawyers  in  the  town,  its  commercial 
and  legal  business  about  the  beginning  of  the  century  being 
very  considerable.  These  had  all  gone  before  my  day,  except 
Lemuel  Whitman,  a  man  of  considerable  legal  and  political 
intelligence  and  at  one  time  a  member  of  Congress,  but,  as  he 
grew  old,  a  cynical,  unsocial  man,  who  sat  all  day  in  his  office 
reading  the  papers,  not  mingling  at  all  in  the  affairs  of  the  town, 
nor  making  himself  useful  in  any  way.  He  walked  across  the 
street  to  his  office,  and  back  to  his  house  to  eat  and  to  sleep, 
taking,  so  far  as  one  could  see,  no  exercise  at  all.  At  last  he 
died  in  a  fit,  in  fact  was  found  dead.  At  his  funeral  the  late 
Rev.  Mr.  Fessenden  made  some  remarks  at  the  grave.  He  was 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

not  very  adroit  in  getting  upon  his  feet  when  he  found  himself 
oft  them.  Xot  thinking  much  beforehand  what  to  say,  he  fell 
into  the  old  rut  of  such  occasions,  and,  alluding  to  his  very 
sudden  death,  spoke  of  him  as  "  cut  off  in  the  midst  of  his 
use  — ,  of  his  use  — ,  of  his  —  of  his  —  activity."  Poor  Mr.  Fes- 
senden  did  not  mend  the  matter  much  by  substituting  activity 
for  usefulness,  for  there  probably  was  not  in  the  town  a  more 
useless  or  inactive  man.  I  allow  myself  to  tell  this  story  be- 
cause not  only  is  good  and  lovable  Mr.  Fessenden  gone,  but 
there  is  not  a  single  member  of  Mr.  Whitman's  family  left, 
either  at  Farmington,  or,  as  I  believe,  anywhere. 

I  occasionally,  when  a  boy,  went  into  the  town  meetings, 
where  the  town  affairs  were  often  vigorously  discussed  and 
sometimes  wrangled  over.  The  selectmen  were  allowed  one 
dollar  a  day  for  the  time  actually  spent  in  the  town  business, 
and  were  held  to  a  very  strict  account  of  what  they  had  done 
to  earn  the  money.  I  remember  one  of  the  farmers  who  was 
opposing  some  outlay  which  he  thought  was  unnecessary,  re- 
marking that  "  if  you  touch  a  man's  pocket  you  touch  him  all 
over."  Gen.  Solomon  Cowles  often  presided  at  these  town 
meetings,  and  deserves  a  passing  notice.  He  wras  a  tall,  fine- 
looking  man,  with  white  hair,  and  impressed  one  as  a  man  quite 
above  the  ordinary  until  he  opened  his  mouth  to  speak,  when 
his  pompous  manner  and  misuse  of  language  and  absolute  in- 
effectiveness of  speech,  disposed  utterly  of  the  impression 
which  one  had  got  from  the  first  observation  of  him.  He  must 
have  been  at  this  time  not  far  from  eighty  years  old.  At  one 
of  the  town  meetings  he  was  appointed  on  a  committee  to  at- 
tend to  some  public  business,  when  he  arose  to  ask  to  be  ex- 
cused, and  said  that  he  was  "  getting  very  old  and  superani- 
mated.''  At  an  ecclesiastical  society  meeting  over  which  he 
presided  a  motion  was  made  for  the  placing  of  large  blocks  of 
stone  at  each  end  of  the  church  for  the  wromen  to  step  out  upon 
from  their  wagons.  The  motion  was  not  in  writing  and  so  he 
had  to  frame  it  for  himself  as  he  put  it,  which  he  did  in  these 
words.  "  Gentlemen,  those  of  you  who  are  in  favor  of  erecting 
a  mode  of  ladies  getting  out  of  wagons  under  the  idea  of  a 
horseblock,  will  please  to  say  '  ave'." 

In  looking  back  to  my  boyhood  T  should  speak  of  the  exist- 


22  REMINISCENCES. 

ence  of  slavery  in  our  southern  states,  and  the  apathy  of  our 
northern  states  about  the  matter,  with  the  universal  disregard 
of  the  rights  of  the  colored  people.  Negro  was  always  spelled 
then  with  two  "  g's."  The  black  man  seemed  to  have  no  rights 
as  a  man.  He  was  often  kindly  regarded  by  humane  people, 
but  such  a  thing  as  his  having  the  rights  of  a  man  was  hardly 
thought  of.  In  church  he  sat  in  the  negroes'  pew,  a  pew  close 
by  the  door  in  the  lower  part  of  the  house  or  in  the  gallery.  I 
remember  once  when  I  was  a  small  boy  seeing  the  stage  for 
New  Haven  come  from  the  north  and  stop  at  Phelps's  hotel 
(where  Miss  Porter's  school  is  now)  to  take  in  passengers. 
There  came  in  it  a  very  decently-clad  black  man,  on  his  way 
to  New  Haven.  Capt.  Goodrich,  one  of  New  Haven's  aris- 
tocracy, was  waiting  at  the  hotel  to  take  the  stage.  As  he  was 
about  to  get  in  he  saw  the  black  man  inside.  With  an  oath,  he 
ordered  him  out,  and  commanded  the  driver  to  take  him  out. 
The  driver  compelled  him  to  get  out,  and  Capt.  Goodrich  got  in 
and  the  stage  drove  off,  leaving  the  black  man  standing  by  the 
hotel  door.  This  man  had  as  good  a  right  to  his  passage  as 
Capt.  Goodrich,  and  his  treatment  was  a  high-handed  outrage. 
We  boys  looked  on,  and  could  not  help  feeling  a  sympathy  for 
the  black  man,  but  somehow  it  did  not  strike  us  that  it  was 
anything  more  than  an  unreasonable  thing  on  Capt.  Goodrich's 
part;  that  the  rights  of  a  man  were  assailed  we  hardly  thought. 
After  the  stage  had  gone,  Mr.  Phelps  feared  that  some  blame 
would  be  attached  to  his  acquiescence  in  or  possible  abetting 
oi  the  act,  and  he  got  up  a  wagon  and  drove  the  man  to  New 
Haven.  When  the  anti-slavery  movement  came  along  it  met 
not  only  with  ridicule,  but  with  persecution.  Its  opponents  did 
not  entertain  a  doubt  of  its  ultimate  failure.  As  the  New  York 
Nation  says  of  the  time,  it  was  a  few  fanatics  on  one  side  and  all 
society  on  the  other.  Harrison  Grey  Otis,  a  Boston  politician 
of  the  time,  said,  "  There  is  not  a  possibility  of  this  fanaticism 
making  any  headway.  Why,  look  at  it ;  all  the  journals  of  the 
country  are  against  it,  except  one  Boston  paper  that  is  pub- 
lished by  a  crank  and  a  nigger."  Yet  that  crank  survived  for 
many  years  the  overthrow  of  slavery.  We  had  here  in  quiet  and 
orderly  Farmington  some  outbreaks  of  the  persecuting  spirit. 
I  was  attending  an  anti-slavery  meeting  in  our  town  hall  when 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

a  stone  as  large  as  one's  fist  was  thrown  through  the  window  be- 
hind the  speaker,  and,  just  missing  his  head,  went  across  the 
hall,  striking  the  wall  on  the  other  side,  but  fortunately  hitting 
no  one.  It  might  have  killed  one  whom  it  had  chanced  to  hit. 
Farmington  was  a  place  where  there  was  a  good  number  of 
abolitionists,  who  harbored  escaping  slaves,  so  that  many  of 
the  latter  were  seen  here,  and  some  of  them  settled  here.  There 
probably  never  were  firmer  or  more  determined  people  than 
these  anti-slavery  men ;  and  the  town  had  many  as  determined 
opponents  of  their  cause.  I  was  about  that  time  superintendent 
of  the  noon  branch  of  the  Sabbath-school,  and  one  Sunday  a 
very  respectable  colored  man  came  into  the  school.  He  was 
not  a  fugitive  slave  —  I  forget  what  brought  him  there.  Not 
caring  for  the  public  sentiment,  and  wishing  to  do  a  kind  thing, 
I  asked  him  to  go  over  to  church  with  me  and  sit  in  my  pew. 
He  did  so,  but  the  moral  shock  was  very  great.  One  of  the 
church  members  said  I  had  done  more  to  break  up  the  church 
than  any  thing  that  had  happened  in  its  whole  history.  But  it 
was  not  long  after  this  that  Dr.  Porter  exchanged  one  Sunday 
with  Rev.  Mr.  Pennington  of  Hartford,  a  negro  as  black  as  a 
native  of  Guinea.  Yet  the  church  has  survived  both  shocks. 

I  shall  devote  a  chapter  of  my  Reminiscences  to  this  black 
preacher,  who  afterwards  became  Rev.  Dr.  Pennington.  He 
was  all  the  while  a  fugitive  slave,  though  none  of  his  Hartford 
people  suspected  it.  He  afterwards  confided  the  fact  to  me,  in 
order  that  I  might  negotiate  with  his  old  master  for  the  pur- 
chase of  his  freedom,  which,  after  a  long  delay,  was  accom- 
plished. The  whole  makes  a  very  interesting  chapter  in  the 
history  of  slavery. 

It  was  while  I  was  living  at  Farmington  that  the  case  of  the 
Aniistad  occurred.  A  Cuban  schooner  of  that  name  was  trans- 
porting some  forty  freshlv  arrived  slaves  from  Havana,  Cuba, 
where  they  had  been  purchased  by  two  Spanish  planters  named 
Ruiz  and  Montez.  to  their  plantations  on  another  part  of  the 
coast,  when  the  slaves  rose  up  and  overpowered  Ruiz  and 
Montez.  killed  the  captain,  and  took  entire  possession  of  the 
vessel.  Thev  knew  nothing:  about  navigation  or  geography, 
but  did  the  best  they  could  to  work  the  vessel  in  a  northerly 
direction.  After  about  two  weeks  thev  were  found  bv  one  of 


24 


REMINISCENCES. 


our  revenue  cutters  at  the  east  end  of  Long  Island  Sound,  and 
were  taken  into  New  London.  Here  the  negroes  at  once  found 
friends  and  protectors,  and,  after  being  detained  in  prison  sev- 
eral months,  and  finally  declared  free  by  the  courts,  they  were 
brought  to  Farmington,  where  they  became  an  object  of  great 
interest  to  the  people  for  many  miles  about.  Comfortable  quar- 
ters were  provided  for  them,  with  a  large  schoolroom,  where 
they  were  taught  the  rudiments  of  knowledge  and  something  of 
our  language.  Some  of  them  were  very  bright  and  learned 
quite  rapidly,  and  all  were  well  behaved  and  orderly,  and 
seemed  to  take  much  interest  in  the  strange  things  which  they 
saw,  and  were  very  grateful  for  the  kindness  shown  them. 
They  were  put  under  no  restraint,  but  were  allowed  to  go  about 
the  streets.  They  came  from  Mendi,  in  Africa,  where  a  mission 
was  afterwards  established,  and  most  of  the  negroes  returned 
there.  They  were  mostly  young  men,  with  a  few  girls.  The 
Mendi  Mission  was  kept  up  for  a  long  time  by  the  American 
Missionary  Association,  but  through  the  death  of  the  mission- 
aries, under  the  sickly  climate  and  from  other  causes,  it  gradu- 
ally lost  ground,  and  the  great  expectations  that  were  enter- 
tained with  regard  to  it  have  never  been  realized. 

I  will  close  this  hasty  review  of  the  observations  and  ex- 
periences of  my  early  life  by  mentioning  one  later  incident  that 
it  has  always  since  been  pleasant  to  me  to  remember.  I  have 
mentioned  the  fact  that  Rev.  Dr.  Porter  was  a  native  of  Farm- 
ington, and  was  brought  up  there,  and  that  his  first  settlement 
after  completing  his  studies  was  over  the  church  there,  the 
pastorate  of  which  he  held  for  over  fifty  years,  finally  dying 
there.  It  was  a  case  almost  without  a  parallel.  What  I  am 
about  to  mention  fits  in  so  well  with  this  unusual  case  that  I 
feel  fully  justified  in  speaking  of  it. 

When  I  left  Farmington  to  reside  in  Hartford  the  church 
was  considering  the  matter  of  employing  an  assistant  pastor  for 
Dr.  Porter.  At  this  time  quite  a  number  of  the  people  of  the 
town,  with  Miss  Sarah  Porter's  name  prominent  among  them, 
sent  me  an  urgent  written  request  that  I  should  give  up  the  idea 
of  going  and  remain  in  Farmington,  and  one  of  the  leading 
men  of  the  church  called  on  me  to  see  whether  I  would  consider 
a  proposition  from  the  church  to  give  up  the  law  and  be  or- 


INTRODUCTION.  2$ 

dained  as  a  clergyman,  and  be  an  assistant,  and,  finally,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Rev.  Dr.  Porter  in  the  pastorate  of  the  church.  He 
seemed  to  think  I  could  be  ordained  at  once,  and  not  have  to 
go  through  a  theological  course;  and  perhaps  he  was  right,  for 
to  sit  for  many  years  under  Dr.  Porter's  preaching,  as  I  had 
done,  was  equivalent,  I  think,  to  a  course  of  theological  study. 
I  did  not,  for  what  seemed  to  me  to  be  decisive  reasons,  give 
any  encouragement  to  the  idea,  but  it  is  a  curious  incident  of 
the  matter,  that  if  I  had  been  settled  over  the  church  as  its  pas- 
tor, two  Farmington  boys  would  have  had  pastorates  there, 
one  succeeding  the  other,  Dr.  Porter  for  over  fifty  years,  and  I 
for  fifty  more.  My  life  has  been  continued  so  long  that  I  could 
probably  have  made  up  the  fifty  years. 


NOTE. —  The  case  of  the  Amistad  negroes  is  one  of  so  great  interest  that  I  ap- 
pend a  more  detailed  account  of  it,  which  was  published  a  few  years  later  by  a  resi- 
dent of  Farmington,  who  was  familiar  with  the  facts. 

On  the  26th  of  August,  1839,  Lieutenant  Gedney,  U.  S.  N.,  in  com- 
mand of  the  brig  Washington,  employed  on  the  coast  survey,  boarded  a 
mysterious  schooner  called  the  Amistad  near  the  shore  at  Cullodon 
point,  on  the  east  end  of  Long  Island.  He  found  a  large  number  of  Afri- 
cans and  two  Spaniards,  Pedro  Montez  and  Jose  Ruiz,  one  of  whom  an- 
nounced himself  as  the  owner  of  the  negroes,  and  claimed  Lieutenant 
Gedney's  protection. 

The  schooner  was  taken  into  the  port  of  New  London.  After  an  ex- 
amination by  Judge  Judson  of  the  United  States  District  Court  the 
Africans  were  committed  for  trial  for  murder  on  the  high  seas,  at  the  Circuit 
Court  to  be  held  at  Hartford,  September  iyth.  There  were  42  in  number, 
viz. :  38  youths  and  men,  three  girls,  and  one  boy.  They  were  all  sent  to 
the  jail  in  New  Haven. 

When  it  was  ascertained  that,  the  negroes  were  recently  from  Africa, 
and  had  been  illegally  bought  at  Havana,  Cuba,  to  be  enslaved,  and  that 
they  had  risen  upon  their  enslavers  and  recovered  their  liberty,  much  in- 
terest was  excited  in  the  public  mind.  It  was  seen  at  once  that  some- 
body ought  to  act  for  these  strangers.  Accordingly  a  few  friends  of 
freedom  met  at  143  Nassau  street,  New  York,  and  Messrs.  Simeon  S. 
Jocelyn,  Joshua  Leavitt,  and  Lewis  Tappan  were  appointed  a  committee 
to  receive  donations  and  employ  counsel ;  and  they  immediately  made  an 
appeal  for  funds  and  engaged  the  professional  services  of  Messrs.  Seth 
P.  Staples,  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Jr.,  and  Roger  S.  Baldwin.  An  Afri- 
can interpreter  was  secured,  and  Messrs.  Leonard  Bacon,  H.  G.  Ludlow, 
and  Amos  Townsend,  Jr.,  of  New  Haven  secured  suitable  instruction  for 
these  benighted  pagans. 

At  the  Circuit  Court  at  Hartford,  September  18,  1839,  Judge  Thomp- 
son stated  that  the  killing  of  the  captain  of  the  Amistad  was  not  a  crime 
against  the  law  of  nations,  connected  as  it  was  with  the  slave  trade. 

The  Africans  were  then  taken  back  to  the  jail  at  New  Haven,  for  the 
District  Court,  to  be  held  in  November,  to  decide  the  question  whether  they 


26  REMINISCENCES. 

were  entitled  to  their  liberty.  And  that  court  decreed  that  the  Africans 
should  be  delivered  to  the  executive  of  the  United  States  to  be  sent  back 
to  Africa. 

The  Hon.  John  Quincy  Adams  had,  at  the  solicitation  of  the  commit- 
tee, consented  to  act  as  senior  counsel,  and  the  cause  was  finally  argued 
by  him  and  Mr.  Baldwin  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
at  Washington,  February  and  March,  1841;  and  apart  of  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  one  of  the  committee  gives  the  result: 

"WASHINGTON,  March  9,  1841. 
"  To  Lewis  Tappan,  Esquire,  New  York: 

"  The  captives  are  free!  They  are  to  be  discharged  from  the 
custody  of  the  marshal,  free.  ;  Not  unto  us  —  not  unto  us,'  &c. 
But  thanks  in  the  name  of  humanity  and  of  justice  to  you. 

"  J.  Q.  ADAMS." 

The  Africans  were  removed  to  Farmington,  Conn.,  to  the  residence 
of  Austin  F.  Williams,  where  they  remained  under  the  instruction  of  Pro- 
fessor George  E.  Day,  until  they  left  this  country. 

Accompanied  by  Mr.  Tappan,  eight  or  ten  of  these  negroes  were  taken 
to  several  of  the  principal  towns  in  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  where 

Eublic  meetings  were  held  and  collections  made.  The  proficiency  which 
ad  been  made  by  these  strangers  under  such  unpropitious  circum- 
stances in  reading,  spelling,  arithmetic,  &c.,  greatly  interested  the  com- 
munities. At  last,  a  passage  having  been  secured  for  them  in  a  vessel 
bound  for  Sierra  Leone,  a  farewell  public  meeting  was  held  in  Broadway 
Tabernacle,  New  York,  Lord's  day  evening,  November  27,  1841,  when, 
after  devotional  exercises,  instructions  were  given  to  the  missionaries 
under  appointment,  the  Rev.  William  Raymond  and  wife  and  the  Rev. 
James  Steele,  who  were  to  accompany  the  freed  Africans  back  to  their 
native  land.  Parting  counsels  were  given  to  these  returning  Mendians, 
some  of  whom  took  part  in  the  exercises,  and  this  w_as  the  preparation  for 
the  mission  work  at  Mendi,  in  Africa. 

The  first  public  movement  made  with  reference  to  doing  something 
to  carry  the  Gospel  to  Africa,  and  for  the  aid  of  colored  people  in  America, 
was  by  the  Rev.  James  W.  C.  Pennington,  the  colored  pastor  of  the  First 
Colored  Congregational  Church,  Hartford,  Conn.,  who  called  a  meeting  in 
his  own  church,  May  5,  1841,  at  which  a  committee  was  appointed  to  call 
a  general  meeting  of  the  friends  of  missions,  which  was  held  in  Hartford, 
August  1 8,  1841,  to  consider  the  subject  of  missions  to  Africa.  This  was 
the  origin  of  associated  society  work  for  Africa,  and  some  of  the  ante- 
cedents of  the  American  Missionary  Association,  which  has  done  so  great 
and  good  a  work  for  the  freedmen,  Chinese,  and  Indians. 


REMINISCENCES. 


TAKEN  BY   PIRATES. 

I  have  mentioned  the  fact,  in  my  introductory  chapter,  that 
I  was  compelled  to  abandon  my  college  course,  after  pursuing 
it  for  about  two  years,  mainly  because  of  a  very  serious  weak- 
ness of  my  eyes,  brought  on  by  excessive  study,  in  the  attempt 
to  overtake  my  class  after  a  long  course  of  typhoid  fever,  and 
when  not  fully  recovered  from  my  illness.  The  state  of  my  eyes 
not  only  disabled  me  in  my  studies,  but  seemed  likely  to  defeat 
my  plan  for  a  professional  life.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  must 
spend  at  least  a  year  or  two  in  outdoor  life,  and  as  I  had  from 
early  boyhood  almost  a  passion  for  sea  life,  I  concluded  to  try 
a  few  months  on  the  sea,  with  a  possibility  that  I  might  spend 
my  life  on  it.  The  town  of  Farmington,  where  I  was  born  and 
brought  up,  though  an  inland  town,  was  almost  like  a  seaport  in 
its  relation  to  sea  life.  A  firm  of  five  brothers,  of  great  energy 
and  ability,  owned  ships  and  became  large  importers  of  foreign 
goods,  which  they  sold  at  wholesale,  the  retail  merchants  of 
Hartford  going  to  Farmington  to  buy  their  goods  of  them. 
These  goods  were  not  brought  to  Farmington,  or  at  least  be- 
yond what  was  needed  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  vicinity,  but 
were  generally  delivered  to  the  purchasers  in  New  York,  and 
from  there  sent  to  Hartford.  The  five  brothers  made  them- 
selves large  fortunes  for  that  time.  Several  of  the  Farmington 
boys  went  to  sea  in  their  ships.  One  of  them  named  Mix  be- 
came a  sea  captain,  and  I  remember  him  well  as  he  walked  the 
street  in  his  blue  roundabout  or  pea-jacket.  An  uncle  of  mine, 
a  wayward  brother  of  my  father,  went  before  the  mast  for  some 
time  in  one  of  their  vessels,  and  often  told  of  his  adventures. 
My  only  brother  is  now  a  retired  naval  officer.  He  entered  the 
navy  when  the  war  broke  out  in  1861,  having  before  been  a  sea- 


28  REMINISCENCES. 

captain  in  the  merchant  service.  With  all  my  desire  to  try  a 
sea  life,  and  with  a  feeling  that,  as  I  might  decide  to  follow  it,  it 
was  indispensable  that  I  begin  at  the  bottom,  I  shipped  before 
the  mast  on  board  a  brig  bound  to  Spain  for  wine  and  fruit, 
the  entire  voyage  taking  four  months.  Soon  after  my  return, 
in  1836,  I  shipped  as  a  foremast  hand  on  board  the  bark  Marble- 
head,  owned  in  Boston,  but  sailing  from  New  York,  for  China 
and  other  East  India  ports.  I  was  gone  on  this  voyage  about 
fourteen  months.  I  had  many  interesting  adventures  on  both 
vessels,  but  will  tell  of  only  one  of  them. 

On  our  way  home  from  China,  with  a  full  cargo  of  tea,  one 
morning  when  we  were  in  mid-ocean  and  about  opposite  the 
most  southern  of  the  West  India  Islands,  we  were  sailing  with 
the  wind  on  our  starboard  quarter,  and  with  a  heavy  sea  left 
by  a  hard  blow  of  a  day  or  two  before.  As  my  watch  came  on 
deck  we  saw  the  captain  on  the  forecastle,  watching  very  in- 
tently with  his  glass  a  vessel  that  lay  off  a  few  miles  on  our 
weather  bow.  After  a  while  he  gave  an  order  to  call  all  hands, 
and  when  we  all  appeared  he  said:  "  Men,  that  is  a  pirate."  We 
could  now  see  her  distinctly.  She  was  a  schooner  with  raking 
masts  and  a  heavy  mainsail,  and  was  lying  with  her  sails  flap- 
ping-, and  was  evidently  waiting  for  us.  We  kept  on  our 
course,  watching  her  intently  and  anxiously.  We  were  utterly 
unable  to  defend  ourselves  if  she  should  attack  us,  as  we  had 
only  two  guns,  which  had  not  been  fired  since  we  left  New 
York,  and  were  too  old  and  rusty  for  use,  and  had  very  few 
weapons  of  any  sort,  while  the  pirate's  crew  were  probably  five 
times  the  number  of  our  own.  When  we  got  within  about  a 
mile  of  her,  she  filled  her  sails  and  bore  down' upon  us.  When 
near  enough  she  hailed  us  and  asked  who  we  were  and  whither 
bound,  and  what  we  had  on  board.  As  we  had  nothing  that  the 
pirate  could  take,  the  captain  answered  the  questions  truly. 
She  then  said  "  Heave  to,  while  we  come  up  on  the  lee  side." 
She  was  on  our  weather  side,  and  with  the  heavy  sea  running, 
could  come  near  us  only  on  our  lee  side,  which  was  then  the 
larboard  side.  The  captain  ordered  the  man  at  the  wheel  to 
port  the  helm,  which  brought  the  sails  shaking  in  the  wind, 
and  the  ship,  except  for  her  headway,  to  a  standstill.  The 
pirate  then  dropped  astern  to  come  up  on  the  other  side.  When 


TAKEN  BY  PIRATES. 


29 


directly  astern  of  us,  and  perhaps  half  a  mile  behind  us,  the 
captain  ordered  the  man  at  the  wheel  to  bring  the  ship  before 
the  wind  again,  and  very  soon  we  were  surging  ahead  and  leav- 
ing the  pirate  quite  a  distance  behind  us.  But  immediately  she 
threw  out  more  sail,  and  came  sweeping  down  upon  us  like  a 
hawk  upon  a  bird.  When  she  got  near  enough  she  fired  a  shot 
over  us  from  a  long-torn,  which  swung  on  a  pivot  in  the  center 
of  her  deck,  and  at  the  same  time  the  pirate  captain  called  out 
to  us  through  a  speaking  trumpet:  "  Heave  to,  or  we  sink  you." 
Our  captain  ordered  the  man  at  the  wheel  to  put  the  helm 
down,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  sails  were  shaking  in  the  wind 
again.  There  was  too  heavy  a  sea  running  for  the  pirate  to 
come  alongside,  and  she  lowered  a  boat,  and  with  an  officer, 
either  her  captain  or  first  mate,  and  a  full  boat's  crew,  she  came 
up  under  our  lee  and  called  to  have  a  rope  ladder  lowered.  Our 
captain  was  in  a  frenzy  of  excitement,  and  told  the  men  to  seize 
handspikes  and  knock  the  men  down  as  they  attempted  to  come 
over  the  ship's  side.  But  we  had  a  first  mate  who  had  in  his 
youth  been  a  privateersman  in  South  American  waters,  and 
who  now  seemed  to  be  in  his  element.  He  called  out  to  the 
captain:  "  Captain  Christie,  you  are  crazy.  We  can  do  nothing 
but  let  them  come.  If  they  choose  to  kill  us  we  can't  help  our- 
selves, and  they  will  surely  do  it  if  we  make  a  fight.  If  we  let 
them  come,  there  is  a  chance  that  they  may  not  hurt  us."  Right 
at  this  point  a  very  grotesque  incident  occurred,  and  helped  to 
relieve  a  little  the  strain  we  were  under.  Our  cook,  the  only 
black  man  on  board,  had  gone  to  his  caboose,  and  was  boo-hoo- 
ing  like  a  frightened  calf.  The  mate,  hearing  him,  went  to  the 
caboose  and  broke  in  upon  him  with,  "  You  d — d  nigger,  what 
are  you  blubbering  about?  You  afraid  they'll  kill  you?  They 
may  kill  us  white  folks;  but  a  nigger  will  sell.  They'll  never 
hurt  you  —  they'll  only  take  you  to  market.  Now,  stop  your 
d — d  blubbering."  The  men  had  lowered  the  rope  ladder  to 
the  pirate  boat,  and  the  officer  came  on  board,  followed  soon 
after  by  all  the  men.  Our  captain  met  the  officer  as  he  came  on 
board  in  a  perfectly  polite  way,  and  the  officer  touched  his  hat 
to  him.  as  he  stepped  on  deck.  The  officer  was  evidently  a  Por- 
tuguese. He  was  tall  and  very  erect,  and  a  perfect  gentleman 
in  his  manners.  The  captain  took  him  upon  the  quarterdeck, 


30  REMINISCENCES. 

and  they  walked  back  and  forth  for  about  ten  minutes.  The 
men,  in  the  mean  time,  came  over  the  ship's  side  and  sat  on  the 
rail,  having  brought  up  the  painter  of  the  boat  and  fastened  it 
to  a  belaying  pin.  The  officer  talked  good  English,  and  the 
men  generally  could  understand  enough  of  it  for  what  talk  we 
attempted.  When  it  seemed  probable  that  they  were  not  to  kill 
us,  they  became  quite  friendly  and  ready  for  a  joke  with  us. 
Our  men,  now  about  three  months  out  of  Canton,  had  used 
up  all  their  tobacco,  as  sailors  always  do  on  long  voyages,  and 
were  crazy  after  more.  So,  as  soon  as  they  began  to  feel  easy 
about  the  throat-cutting,  they  asked  the  pirate  crew  for  to- 
bacco. The  pirates,  seeing  that  our  men  were  out,  gave  them 
all  they  had,  and  some  of  them  had  their  pockets  full.  The 
pirate  officer  and  our  captain  at  last  got  through  their  talk,  and 
came  forward  together.  We  were  all  standing  about  amidships, 
waiting  rather  anxiously  for  the  next  development.  Pretty 
soon  the  officer  said  that  he  had  sprung  one  of  his  spars  in  the 
late  gale,  and  asked  what  spare  spars  we  had  on  board.  We 
had  a  large  number  of  rough  pine  trunks  for  repairing  our  spars 
that  were  lashed  to  ringbolts  on  each  side  of  our  long  boat, 
that  was  itself  lashed  to  ringbolts  about  amidships.  To  these 
spars  were  lashed  all  our  water  casks,  probably  ten  on  each  side, 
and  about  half  of  them  still  full.  The  pirate  officer  told  us  to 
unlash  the  spars  on  the  larboard  side  so  that  he  could  examine 
them.  His  men  did  not  offer  to  help  us,  but  we  went  at  it,  with 
him  standing  over  us.  The  ship  was  rolling  heavily,  and  as  we 
cast  the  casks  adrift  it  was  all  we  could  do  to  keep  out  of  the  way 
of  the  full  ones,  which  could  be  held  in  place  only  by  being 
blocked  with  billets  of  wood,  and  which  seemed  every  in- 
stant to  be  ready  to  break  away  as  the  ship  rolled.  With  the 
greatest  difficulty  we  got  them  all  unlashed  and  blocked  up,  and 
the  spars  open  for  his  examination.  He  measured  several  of 
them  and  finally  said  that  there  was  no  one  which  satisfied  him, 
and  that  he  would  look  at  those  on  the  other  side.  So  in  utter 
exhaustion  we  had  to  go  through  the  same  struggle  with  the 
others.  But  at  last  we  got  them  all  unlashed  and  laid  open  for 
his  examination.  Luckily,  he  here  found  one  that  would  do, 
and  he  made  us  get  this  over  the  ship's  side,  with  a  long  rope 
fastened  to  it,  by  which  his  men  were  to  tow  it  over  to  their 
vessel.  The  pirate  then  ordered  his  men  to  go  down  to  their 


FLORA   SLAVE  CASE.  31 

boat,  and,  touching  his  hat  most  politely  to  our  captain,  he  said 
"  Good  day,  captain,  I  will  settle  with  you  for  that  spar  the 
next  time  I  see  you." 

Thus  ended  this  adventure.  I  had  some  other  very  exciting 
ones,  and  some  of  much  danger,  in  this  East  India  voyage  and 
on  the  one  to  the  Mediterranean.  But  they  are  hardly  worth 
spending  time  upon. 

FLORA  SLAVE  CASE. 

In  1845  I  was  living  in  the  town  of  Farmington,  Conn., 
having  begun  the  practice  of  law  there  in  1841.  At  that  time 
I  received  a  letter  from  Rev.  Mr.  Hemingway  of  Suffield,  in 
this  state,  requesting  me  to  come  up  there  and  help  him  look 
up  some  evidence  in  an  important  slave  case  in  Virginia.  It 
appeared  that  a  large  number  of  slaves  in  and  about  Fincastle, 
in  the  western  part  of  Virginia,  had  brought  suits,  claiming 
their  freedom.  They  were  the  descendants  of  a  negro  woman 
named  Flora,  and  of  her  two  daughters,  all  then  dead,  who  had 
always  claimed  to  be  free  women  and  to  have  been  kidnapped 
from  Connecticut  soon  after  the  Revolutionary  war.  None 
of  the  present  negroes  had  any  idea  about  Connecticut,  but  the 
name  of  Suffield  had  come  down  by  tradition  as  that  of  the 
place  where  Flora  had  lived.  Under  the  settled  rule  of  slave 
law,  the  child  followed  the  condition  of  the  mother,  and  if 
Flora  and  her  daughters  were  free,  all  their  descendants  were 
entitled  to  freedom.  Under  a  merciful  provision  of  Virginia 
law.  the  slaves  were  allowed  to  sue  as  paupers,  the  state  reliev- 
ing them  of  all  the  ordinary  costs  of  a  suit.  There  were  four 
suits,  the  slaves  being  held  by  four  different  masters.  The 
cases  were,  by  agreement  of  counsel  or  by  order  of  the  court, 
tried  together.  On  receiving  Mr.  Hemingway's  letter  I  went 
to  Suffield,  and  with  him  made  inquiry  among  the  very  old  peo- 
ple of  the  neghborhood,  and  found  that  they  had  a  clear  recol- 
lection of  the  following  facts: 

A  man  named  Hanchett,  who  had  been  a  captain  in  the 
Revolutionary  army,  kept  a  small  country  tavern  just  out  of 
Suffield,  within  the  town  of  Southwick,  Mass.,  immediately 
after  the  war.  He  was  a  desperate  character,  and  the  terror 
of  the  region.  There  lived  in  Suffield  a  respectable  black  man 
named  Exeter,  with  his  wife  Flora  and  two  little  daughters. 


32  REMINISCENCES. 

Hanchett  had  once  tried  to  carry  off  Flora  and  the  children, 
but  Exeter  had  fought  him  off.  Some  time  later,  when  Exeter 
came  home  from  his  day's  work,  he  found  them  gone.  He 
knew  that  Hanchett  must  have  taken  them,  and  implored  him 
to  bring  them  back,  and  on  his  refusing  to  do  it,  begged  him 
to  tell  him  where  they  were.  Twice  the  poor  fellow  went  off  on 
long  journeys,  tramping  and  begging  his  way,  only  to  find  that 
Hanchett  had  fooled  him,  and  at  last  he  died  without  ever 
knowing  what  had  become  of  them.  A  warrant  was  got  out 
against  Hanchett,  but  he  kept  over  the  Massachusetts  line,  and 
finally,  in  part  from  want  of  satisfactory  evidence,  the  prosecu- 
tion was  abandoned,  and  the  whole  matter  was  dropped  from 
public  attention.  Flora  and  the  children  were  never  traced. 

Hanchett  had  now  long  been  dead,  and  very  few  people  of 
the  time  survived,  and  only  those  who  were  then  children.  We 
got  memoranda  of  the  recollections  of  some  twenty  of  these 
and  sent  them  to  the  lawyers  in  Virginia,  who  had  a  commis- 
sion issued  by  the  court  for  the  taking  of  their  depositions. 
Mr.  Samuel  S.  Cowles  of  Farmington  was  appointed  commis- 
sioner, and  I  attended  as  counsel,  Mr.  Hemingway  assisting 
me.  A  Mr.  Wisor,  a  Virginia  lawyer,  attended  in  behalf  of  the 
defendants.  There  being  four  suits,  he  required  that  separate 
depositions  be  taken  for  each  case.  The  difficulties  attending 
the  taking  of  the  evidence  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  The  de- 
ponents were,  of  course,  very  old,  several  bed-ridden,  many 
quite  deaf,  and  some  with  failing  memories,  and  all  in  a  condi- 
tion to  be  embarrassed  by  cross-examination.  Mr.  Wisor, 
however,  acted  very  fairly,  and  did  not  take  any  undue  advan- 
tage of  this  state  of  things.  We  succeeded  in  getting  a  consid- 
erable body  of  substantial  evidence,  which  we  sent  to  the  Vir- 
ginia lawyers.  The  cases  had  been  tried  before,  mainly  upon 
the  fact  that  Flora  and  her  children  had  been  purchased  in  the 
city  of  New  York  and  brought  into  Virginia  in  violation  of 
some  law  of  Virginia,  and  the  jury  had  disagreed.  I  never 
understood  fully  this  part  of  the  case.  The  suits  now  came  on 
to  be  tried  again,  and  the  lawyer  had  the  Suffield  depositions 
to  use  in  them.  This  trial  resulted  in  a  verdict  for  the  negroes. 

Their  counsel  in  Virginia  were  John  T.  and  Francis  T. 
Anderson,  brothers,  who  were  in  practice  at  Fincastle,  the 
county  seat  of  Botetourt  County.  They  at  once  wrote  me  of 


SUI  GENERIS. 


33 


the  success  of  the  suits,  and  that  the  negroes  had  at  once  been 
to  them,  proposing  that  they  hire  them  all  out  for  a  year,  and 
that  their  earnings  should  go  to  pay  their  lawyers  and  the  Con- 
necticut expenses,  and  they  requested  me  to  send  on  a  bill  for 
my  services  and  for  all  the  money  paid  out  by  the  friends  of 
the  negroes  in  getting  the  evidence.  None  of  us  had  thought 
of  getting  any  pay,  not  even  for  the  considerable  expenses  that 
we  had  incurred,  but  I  made  out  a  reasonable  bill  and  sent  it 
on.  The  next  I  heard  was  that  the  cases  had  been  carried  up 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  state,  on  some  exceptions  taken 
on  the  trial,  and  finally  they  wrote  me  that  the  higher  court 
had  set  aside  the  verdict  and  granted  a  new  trial.  Two  or  three 
further  trials  were  had,  in  the  earlier  of  which  the  jury  dis- 
agreed, but,  finally,  on  a  later  trial,  brought  in  a  verdict  against 
the  negroes.  Their  counsel  carried  this  verdict  to  the  Supreme 
Court  on  exceptions  taken  on  the  trial,  but  that  court  affirmed 
the  judgment.  This  ended  the  case,  and  the  poor  negroes  re- 
mained in  slavery  until  set  free  by  President  Lincoln's  procla- 
mation, some  ten  years  later. 

I  felt  a  great  admiration  for  John  T.  Anderson  and  his 
brother  Francis.  Both  are  dead  and  buried  at  Fincastle.  If  I 
should  ever  go  there,  I  should  look  up  their  graves  with  a  tear- 
ful interest.  They  were  leading  lawyers  in  that  part  of  Vir- 
ginia, and  Francis  was  afterwards  a  member  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  state,  where  he  served  twelve  years  before  his 
death.  Of  the  fate  of  the  negroes  in  their  new  life  of  freedom 
I  have  no  knowledge. 

sui  GENERIS. 

The  only  time  that  I  ever  kept  school  was  in  finishing  out 
a  term  in  the  Farmington  Academy  which  had  been  begun  by 
a  college  friend,  who,  for  some  reason,  was  not  able  to  finish  it. 
It  was,  I  think,  in  1838.  Among  my  pupils  was  a  very  stupid 
boy  who  was  studying  Latin,  in  the  hope  of  finally  going  to 
college.  This  purpose  he  wisely  abandoned  soon  after.  He 
was  one  day  reciting  to  me  in  Sallust.  The  passage  was  one 
where  the  author  describes  in  much  detail  one  of  the  leading 
conspirators  who  was  with  Catiline  in  his  conspiracy.  After 
mentioning  many  traits  of  his  character,  he  closes  by  saying, 


34  REMINISCENCES. 

"  in  short,  he  was  sni  generis  " —  a  man  of  his  own  kind,  or  a 
peculiar  man.  The  boy  went  along  pretty  well  till  he  came  to 
this  passage,  which  he  translated  thus:  "  in  short,  he  was  sni 
generis  —  a  kind  of  a  hog." 

Every  one  familiar  with  the  Latin  language  will  see  at  once 
how  the  blundering  boy  got  that  meaning  out  of  the  words. 

The  same  boy,  at  another  time,  translated  ca paces  fcminac 
(meaning  women  of  capacity),  ".capacious  women." 

THE  OX  THAT  RETURNED  FROM  THE  TICONDEROGA  EXPEDITION. 

The  incident  I  am  about  to  relate  is  not  a  reminiscence  of 
my  own,  but  was  told  me  by  my  father,  and  is  well  worth  pre- 
serving. 

In  1758,  during  the  old  French  war,  a  number  of  the  Con- 
necticut young  men,  sons  of  farmers,  went  to  Ticonderoga 
with  yokes  of  oxen  to  assist  in  the  transportation  of  war  ma- 
terial and  supplies.  My  grandfather,  Noadiah  Hooker,  living 
in  Farmington,  and  then  twenty-one  years  old,  went  on  with 
a  yoke  of  his  father's  oxen. 

The  following  extract  from  the  journal  of  Augustus  Hay- 
den,  I  think  of  Windsor,  who  seems  to  have  gone  on  in  the 
same  way,  appeared  in  the  Hartford  Courant  of  October  12, 
1889: 

"  July  the  28th  our  escorts  were  escorting  the  teams  from 
Fort  Edwards  to  Halfway  Brook,  and  the  enemy  lay  in  ambush 
for  them,  and  when  the  escort  had  got  against  them  the  enemy 
rose  up  and  fired  upon  them  and  killed  twenty-six  men.  There 
is  about  fifty  in  all  that  are  missing.  There  was  thirty-six 
teams.  They  was  all  killed  but  one,  and  they  knocked  off  his 
horns.  The  loadin  was  all  destroyed." 

My  grandfather's  oxen  were  among  the  teams,  and  he  was 
to  have  gone  with  them,  but  was  ill  that  day,  and  another 
young  man  took  his  place.  This  young  man  was  killed,  and 
it  was  supposed  that  the  oxen  were  killed.  The  enemy  lying 
in  ambush  was,  in  large  part,  Indians,  who  were  fighting  on  the 
French  side.  My  grandfather,  as  his  team  was  now  gone,  soon 
after  came  home  to  Farmington.  On  the  following  Thanks- 
giving Day,  about  four  months  after  the  slaughter  at  Ticon- 
deroga, as  he  was  on  his  way  to  church  he  heard  an  ox  lowing 


MARTIN  CAIRNS,  35 

from  the  bottom  of  the  hill  on  which  his  house  stood  and  com- 
ing up  the  hill.  As  he  got  nearer,  he  saw  it  was  one  of  his 
Ticonderoga  yoke,  that  had  escaped  the  general  butchery. 
The  ox  had  been  browsing  his  way  along  for  the  four  months, 
and  had  had  to  swim  across  the  Hudson.  .  It  was  a  marvelous 
piece  of  intelligence  on  his  part,  and  a  very  pretty  bit  of  senti- 
ment that  had  led  him  to  time  his  arrival  for  Thanksgiving 
Day.  He  was  a  great  favorite  the  rest  of  his  life. 

The  horns  of  the  ox  were  not  broken,  showing  that  Mr. 
Hayden's  impression  that  all  the  cattle  were  killed  but  one, 
and  that  the  Indians  broke  off  his  horns,  was  not  correct. 

MARTIN  CAIRNS. 

Martin  had,  in  1850,  been  for  several  years  the  messenger 
of  the  court  room  at  Hartford.  The  Superior  Court  and  the 
County  Court  were  held  in  the  same  room,  and  he  was  mes- 
senger for  both.  He  had  been  quite  attentive  to  his  duties, 
and  the  members  of  the  bar  thought  it  fitting  that  they  should 
give  him  a  testimonial  of  their  regard.  A  committee  appointed 
on  the  subject  concluded  to  get  something  for  his  wife,  and 
accordingly  the  money  raised  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  Mrs. 
Thomas  C.  Perkins  and  Mrs.  D.  F.  Robinson,  who  bought  with 
it  twro  nice  dresses  and  a  shawl.  The  presentation  was  made  in 
the  court  room  one  noon,  during  the  session  of  the  Superior 
Court.  Judge  Ellsworth,  who  was  holding  the  court,  took  the 
noon  recess  a  half-hour  earlier  than  usual  to  accommodate  us, 
and  staid  himself  to  witness  the  proceeding.  The  members 
of  the  bar,  the  officers  of  the  court,  and  the  law  students  of  the 
city  were  generally  present,  as  public  notice  had  been  given. 
I  was  appointed  to  perform  the  ceremony  of  presentation,  and, 
in  making  it,  read  the  following  lines,  which  I  had  hastily  pre- 
pared. 

It  should  be  stated  in  explanation  of  some  points  made  in 
them  that  we  had  recently  had  our  court  room  refitted  with 
new  carpet  and  new  furniture,  and  that  Martin,  wrho  took  great 
pride  in  the  improvement,  \vas  constantly  on  the  alert  to  pre- 
vent tobacco-chewers  from  spitting  on  the  carpet,  and  when- 
ever he  saw  this  happen,  or  from  the  person's  known  habit 
likely  to  happen,  was  in  the  habit  of  placing  one  of  the  spittoons 


36  REMINISCENCES. 

before  the  tobacco-chewer.  This  led  to  many  jokes  on  the 
subject.  He  had  an  interesting  boy,  about  ten  years  of  age, 
whom  he  occasionally  brought  to  the  court  room  with  him,  and 
who  happened  to  be  present  at  this  time,  giving  a  happy  effect 
to  the  allusion  to  him.  It  is  also  to  be  stated  that  the  court 
messenger  was  then  appointed  by  the  judge  of  the  County 
Court,  who,  being  annually  elected  by  the  legislature,  changed 
with  every  change  in  the  politics  of  the  state,  and  as  he  changed 
the  messenger  wyas  very  likely  to  change.  Martin,  however, 
had  given  so  good  satisfaction  that  he  was  kept  in  through 
several  changes  of  administration. 

The  Hartford  lawyers,  good  friend  Martin, 

Whose  favor  specially  thou  art  in. 

Have  deemed  it  just,  and  no  less  pleasant, 

To  give  to  thee  a  little  present; 

And  knowing  where  dwells  thy  life  of  life, 

Have  made  it,  through  thee,  to  thy  wife. 

For  her  thou  lovest  most  of  all 

We  bring  two  dresses  and  a  shawl. 

Take  them,  friend  Martin,  to  thy  home, 

Where  she  is  waiting  till  you  come; 

And  as  she  meets  you  with  caresses, 

Hold  up  the  shawl  and  both  the  dresses, 

And  ask  her  from  the  Bar  to  take 

A  present  for  her  husband's  sake  ; 

And  with  them  give  our  wishes  true 

For  all  that  can  bless  her  and  you. 

And  may'st  thou  long,  friend  Martin  Cairns, 

Rejoice  in  her  and  many  bairns, 

Till,  furrowed  by  no  mournful  tears. 

Your  face  shall  furrowed  be  by  years; 

And  till  your  hair,  at  last  grown  gray, 

Shall  round  your  brow  like  snow-wreaths  play. 

Thou  well  hast  borne  thine  office,  Martin, 

And  distant  be  the  day  of  parting. 

May'st  thou  preserve  thine  honest  station 

Under  each  new  administration  ; 

For  who  but  thee  would  look  so  sharp  at 

The  man  who  spits  upon  the  carpet  ? 

And  who  but  thee  would  wait  so  soon 

On  such  offenders  with  spittoon  ? 

Old  Justice's  halls  who'd  dust  so  neatly  ? 

And  who  of  errands  run  so  fleetly? 

And  who  could  show  such  merry  heart  in 

His  duties  as  our  Merry  Martin  ? 

Then  may  thy  virtues,  like  a  charm, 
Long  death  and  politics  disarm ; 
And  though  the  arm  of  each  be  bared, 
By  both  be  thou  in  mercy  spared, 


HOW  I  BECAME  A   D.D.  37 

Till  thou,  an  old  man,  may'st  with  pride 

Perhaps  see  here  thy  son  preside 

A  judge  (such  things  do  oft  occur), 

Or  rule  our  State  as  Governor. 

Then,  with  thy  heart  with  God  at  peace, 

And  waiting  patient  thy  release, 

Old  death,  that  messenger  so  grim, 

Shall  take  our  messenger  to  him. 

Then  thee  to  Heaven  may  he  transport, 

Humbly  to  wait  in  Heaven's  court, 

And  those  whom  thou  on  earth  hold'st  dear, 

May  all,  in  new  robes,  there  appear. 

Martin  made  a  genuine  Irish  speech  in  reply,  closing  with 
one  of  the  best  bulls  that  an  Irishman  ever  got  off.  Speaking 
of  the  great  regard  that  he  entertained  for  the  members  of  the 
Hartford  bar,  and  had  always  felt  since  he  knew  them,  he  said: 
''  Before  the  present  was  given  me  I  felt  just  as  I  do  now,  but 
now  I  feel  fifty  times  more  so." 

The  General  Assembly  at  this  time  sat,  every  other  year,  in 
New  Haven,  and  many  of  the  books  from  the  various  state  of- 
fices at  Hartford  had  to  be  carried  down.  They  were  generally 
sent  under  Martin's  care,  who  took  them  to  the  state  house  at 
New  Haven  and  then  went  to  the  Tontine  hotel  to  put  himself 
at  the  service  of  the  state  officials,  who  generally  staid  there. 
He  felt  the  importance  of  this  duty  greatly,  and,  in  view  of  the 
necessity  for  occasionally  signing  his  name,  had  early  set  out 
to  learn  to  write  his  name,  which,  I  believe,  was  to  the  last  the 
limit  of  his  education  in  penmanship.  By  taking  time  for  it, 
and  with  considerable  motion  of  his  tongue,  he  was  able  to 
write  his  name  quite  readily.  On  one  of  these  occasions  at  New 
Haven  he  walked  up  to  the  clerk's  desk  at  the  hotel  with  quite 
an  important  air,  and  spread  out  his  name  upon  the  register. 
A  Hartford  man  who  arrived  with  him  and  knew  his  limitations 
in  the  matter  of  chirography,  said  to  him,  just  as  he  finished  the 
entry  of  his  own  name :  "  Martin,  won't  you  write  my  name, 
too?  "  Martin  turned  around  to  him  and  said:  "  Write  your 
name,  sir?  You  wouldn't  have  me  commit  forgery,  would 
you?" 

HOW  I  BECAME  A  DOCTOR  OF  DIVINITY. 

The  "  Fugitive  Slave  Law,"  which  was  passed  by  Congress 
in  1850,  created  great  alarm  among  the  colored  people  of  the 
North.  Many  of  them  were  runaway  slaves,  and  of  course 
they  had  great  fear  of  being  discovered  and  captured,  but  the 


38  REMINISCENCES. 

free  negroes,  as  well,  were  alarmed  lest  they  might  be  seized 
and  carried  off  as  slaves,  the  law  giving  the  claimant  a  great 
advantage  over  the  black  man,  by  compelling  the  latter  to 
prove  his  right  to  his  freedom,  which  he  might  not  be  able  to 
do  if  away  from  home,  while  the  question  was  to  be  decided 
by  a  single  magistrate  of  about  the  grade  of  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  and  that  finally  and  without  appeal,  the  law  providing 
that  if  the  magistrate  found  for  the  claimant  he  was  at  once  to 
issue  an  order,  under  which  the  claimant  could  immediately 
transport  him  out  of  the  state.  The  law  even  appealed  to  the 
cupidity  of  this  low  grade  of  officials  by  allowing  them  a  fee  of 
but  $5  in  case  of  a  decision  for  the  negro,  and  of  $10  in  case  of 
a  decision  for  the  claimant,  the  larger  fee  being  put  under  the 
thin  cover  of  compensation  for  his  added  trouble  in  having 
to  make  the  order  for  the  delivery  of  the  negro  to  the  claimant. 
This  act  was  but  the  culmination  of  a  growing  aggressive- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  slaveholders  in  the  assertion  of  what 
they  claimed  as  their  constitutional  rights,  and  of  an  obsequious 
concession  to  their  demands  on  the  part  of  Northern  poli- 
ticians. This  state  of  things  kept  the  blacks  who  were  in  fact 
fugitive  slaves  in  a  constant  fear,  though  until  this  act  was 
passed  the  free  negroes  were  in  no  great  danger  of  being  seized 
and  carried  off  as  slaves.  For  several  years  before  the  passage 
of  the  act  Rev.  James  W.  C.  Pennington,  a  full-blooded  negro, 
was  the  pastor  of  a  congregational  church  of  colored  people 
at  Hartford.  He  was  a  faithful  pastor,  and  very  much  re- 
spected by  the  clergy  of  the  city,  as  well  as  by  the  people  gen- 
erally. No  one  knew  or  suspected  that  he  was  a  fugitive  slave. 
But  a  short  time  before  the  passage  of  the  act  he  came  to  me 
for  a  most  confidential  consultation  and  advice.  He  told  me 
that  he  was  a  fugitive  slave,  and  that  he  had  never  divulged  the 
fact  to  any  of  his  people  in  Hartford,  nor  even  to  his  wife,  and 
that  it  was  known  to  nobody  but  the  Quaker  friends  in  Penn- 
sylvania who  had  sheltered  him  at  the  time  of  his  escape,  and 
had  afterwards  aided  him  in  getting  an  education.  The  fact 
was  withheld  from  his  wife,  however,  mainly  to  save  her  from 
disquieting  fears.  He  told  me  that  in  his  studies,  in  his  do- 
mestic life,  and  in  the  discharge  of  his  parochial  duties,  he  was 
burdened  with  harrassing  apprehensions  of  being  seized  and 
carried  back  to  slaverv.  He  disclosed  the  fact  to  me  that  I 


HOW  I  BECAME  A    D.D. 


39 


might  attempt  to  negotiate  with  his  master  for  the  purchase 
of  his  freedom. 

He  was  born  the  slave  of  Frisbie  Tilghman  of  Hagerstown, 
Maryland,  and  remained  his  slave  until  he  ran  away,  when  he 
was  eighteen  years  old.  He  was  now  about  forty.  The  name 
which  he  now  bore  was  an  assumed  one;  his  name  as  a  slave 
was  "  Jim  Pembroke."  After  his  escape  he  found  protection 
and  assistance  in  a  Quaker  family  in  Pennsylvania,  whose  kind- 
ness he  had  ever  since  remembered  with  the  greatest  gratitude. 
He  had  already,  in  a  stealthy  way,  learned  to  read-  a  little,  but 
here  he  began  those  studies  which,  ever  since  pursued  with 
unremitting  ardor  and  industry,  had  made  him  a  man  of  intelli- 
gence and  something  of  a  scholar.  After  a  while  he  entered 
the  Christian  ministry,  and  was  licensed  and  ordained  as  a 
minister,  and,  as  I  have  before  stated,  was  now  settled  over  a 
congregational  church  of  colored  people  at  Hartford. 

That  he  could  preach  quite  acceptably  I  knew,  as  I  had 
often  heard  him,  and  at  one  time  Rev.  Dr.  Porter  of  Farming- 
ton  had  exchanged  with  him,  and  the  people  of  the  quiet  old 
town  had  been  astonished,  some  of  them  shocked,  by  seeing 
one  of  the  blackest  of  men  in  their  pulpit. 

After  two  or  three  consultations  it  was  decided  that  it  was 
best  for  him  to  go  to  Canada  and  remain  while  the  negotiation 
was  pending.  After  he  had  left  the  city  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Tilgh- 
man, stating  that  I  did  so  in  behalf  of  his  former  slave,  "  Jim 
Pembroke,"  who  was  then  out  of  the  country  and  beyond  his 
reach,  but  was  willing  to  pay  a  small  sum  for  his  legal  freedom. 
I  took  care,  of  course,  to  give  him  no  intimation  of  his  adopted 
name,  nor  of  his  place  of  residence.  Mr.  Tilghman  wrote  me 
in  reply  that  "  Jim  was  a  first-rate  blacksmith,  and  well  worth 
$1,000,"  and  that  as  servants  were  then  very  high  he  could  not 
take  less  than  $500.  He  also  stated  that  he  had  learned  that 
Jim  was  making  himself  useful  in  the  world,  from  which  I  in- 
ferred that  he  had  some  knowledge  of  his  being  a  preacher,  and 
probably  of  the  name  he  was  bearing,  and  perhaps  of  his  place 
of  residence.  The  sum  demanded  was  much  beyond  Mr.  Pen- 
nington's  ability  to  pay,  and  on  my  informing  him  of  Mr.  Tilgh- 
man's  demand,  we  decided  that  it  was  not  safe  for  him  to  re- 
turn to  Hartford,  but  that  it  was  best  for  him  to  go  to  England, 
where  he  would  find  many  friends  among  the  abolitionists 


4o 


REMINISCENCES. 


there.    He  did  so,  and  was  abroad  about  two  years.    He  found 
warm  friends  wherever  he  went,  and  on  visiting  Heidelberg, 
in  Germany,  was  made  a  doctor  of  divinity  by  the  university 
there.    This  honor  he  accepted  in  a  graceful  speech  (or  possibly 
written  communication),  in  which  he  declared  his  personal  un- 
worthiness  of  it,  but  accepted  it  as  the  representative  of  his  race. 
When  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  passed,  in  1850,  which,  of 
course,  made  it  out  of  the  question  for  him  to  return  to  Amer- 
ica as  a  fugitive  slave,  he  was  in  Scotland.    At  this  time  it  was 
generally  known  that  he  was  a  fugitive  from  slavery,  this  fact 
creating  a  wide  interest  in  his  case  and  drawing  to  him  great 
sympathy.    He  frequently  wrote  to  me,  and  I  kept  him  advised 
as  to  the  state  of  things  here.     Soon  after  this  some  friends  in 
Scotland  determined  to  take  the  matter  in  hand  and  raise  the 
necessary  money  to  secure  his  freedom,  whatever  might  be  the 
amount  required,  and  appointed  a  committee  to  attend  to  the 
matter  and  correspond  with  me  on  the  subject.    Upon  hearing 
from  the  committee  that  they  wished  me  to  renew  the  corre- 
spondence with  Mr.  Tilghman,  and  to  pay  him  whatever  he 
should   finally    insist   upon,    I    wrote    him,    stating   that    Jim 
was  now  in  England,  and  would  not  return  unless  his  freedom 
was  secured,  and  asking  what  was  the  lowest  price  he  would 
take  for  his  freedom.  A  stranger  replied,  stating  that  Mr.  Tilgh- 
man was  dead  and  that  he  was  his  administrator,  and  that  in  the 
circumstances,  as  he  desired  to  close  up  the  settlement  of  the 
estate,  he  would  take  $150.     He  added  that,  as  administrator, 
he  had  no  power  to  manumit,  but  could  only  sell  the  slave,  and 
the  purchaser  could  manumit,  and  wished  me  to  name  the  per- 
son to  whom  the  bill  of  sale  should  be  made.     Mr.  Joseph  R. 
Hawley,  since  our  senator  at  Washington,  was  then  my  junior 
law  partner,  and  he  at  once  went  to  Maryland,  carrying  the 
money  (a  larger  sum  than  was  necessary  had  been  sent  me  by 
the  Scotch  friends),  and,  by  my  directions,  took  a  bill  of  sale 
to  me.    I  thus  became  a  slaveholder,  and  the  owner  of  a  doctor 
of  divinity.    On  receiving  the  bill  of  sale  I  held  it  for  a  day  to 
see  what  the  sensation  would  be.  and  then  executed  a  deed  of 
manumission,  which  I  had  recorded  in  the  town  records,  where 
it  may  be  found  in  Vol.  76,  page  356,  under  date  of  June  5, 
1851.    It  set  free  "  my  slave,  Jim  Pembroke,  otherwise  known 
as  Rev.  James  W.  C.  Pennington,  D.D."     It  stands  on  record 
there  for  the  wonder  of  future  generations. 


DOG  FIGHT  SUIT.  41 

After  Dr.  Pennington's  return  to  this  country  and  settle- 
ment over  a  church  in  New  York,  he  attended  at  Hartford  a 
meeting  of  the  colored  people  that  had  been  regularly  held  for 
several  years  on  the  first  day  of  August  in  commemoration  of 
the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  in  the  English  West  India 
Islands,  which  took  effect  August  I,  1834.  I  attended  this 
meeting,  as  did  a  few  other  white  persons,  and  about  two  hun- 
dred colored  people  of  both  sexes.  It  was  held  in  a  grove  in 
the  suburbs,  a  platform  having  been  erected  for  the  speakers. 
Dr.  Pennington  was  welcomed  as  their  old  pastor,  and  was 
one  of  the  earliest  called  out,  the  call  passing  around  for  "  Rev. 
Dr.  Pennington."  After  he  had  spoken  they  saw  me  in  the 
crowd,  and  a  clamorous  call  was  made  for  "  Mr.  Hooker."  I 
went  upon  the  platform,  and  prefaced  my  short  speech  with  a 
few  words,  as  follows :  "  Before  I  make  a  speech,  my  friends, 
I  want  to  set  you  right  about  an  error  you  have  just  fallen  into. 
You  all  know  that  Mr.  Pennington  was  once  my  slave.  Now 
it  is  one  of  the  elemental  principles  of  slavery  that  the  slave  can 
own  nothing.  Everything  that  he  acquires,  or  thinks  he  ac- 
quires, passes  through  him  to  his  master.  Even  the  mule  that 
he  got  with  his  own  earnings  belongs  to  his  master.  Now 
when  I  set  Mr.  Pennington  free  I  merely  took  my  hands  off 
from  him  —  merely  let  him  go.  I  did  not  give  him  anything. 
Thus  the  doctorate  of  divinity,  which,  as  his  master,  I  owned, 
remained  with  me,  and  did  not  go  by  his  manumission  to  him, 
and  I  hold  it  still.  So,  when  you  next  call  us  out  on  an  occasion 
like  this,  I  want  to  have  you  call  for  '  Rev.  Mr.  Pennington  ' 
and  '  Rev.  Dr.  Hooker.' ': 

THE  DOG-FIGHT  SUIT  OF  RHODES  vs.  WELLS. 

In  February,  1857,  the  case  of  Henry  E.  Rhodes  vs.  Setb 
and  Oliver  Wells  was  tried  in  the  Superior  Court  at  Hartford 
before  Chief  Justice  Church  and  a  jury,  and  made  a  good 
deal  of  sport  for  the  bar,  a  large  number  of  the  lawyers  of  the 
city  attending.  The  Doily  Times  in  its  report  of  the  case  says : — 
"  This  action  was  the  last  scene  of  a  dog-drama  which  was  got 
up  some  two  years  since  in  the  ancient  town  of  Wethersfield. 
'  Strike  my  dog  and  you  strike  me,'  is  an  old  saw,  and  this  affair 
proved  its  applicability  in  these  latter  days.  By  some  means  two 


42    •  REMINISCENCES. 

bull-dogs  engaged  in  a  fight;  they  fought  as  such  dogs  always 
do,  and,  as  not  infrequently  occurs,  the  dog  fight  was  but  the 
forerunner  of  a  man  fight.  Rhodes,  getting  rather  too  severely 
beaten  in  his  opinion,  brought  his  action  to  recover  damages. 
Much  evidence  and  of  a  conflicting  character  was  introduced, 
but  the  jury  seemed  to  be  of  the  opinion  that  but  little  blame 
could  be  attached  to  the  defendants,  and  rendered  a  verdict  in 
their  favor." 

During  the  first  day  of  the  trial  my  sense  of  humor  found  so 
much  to  enjoy  that  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  scribble 
some  rhymes  about  the  case,  which  I  passed  about  the  court 
room  for  the  amusement  of  the  lawyers,  and,  the  case  going 
over  to  the  second  day,  I  carried  them  home  and  in  the  evening 
completed  them.  The  next  day  Mr.  William  W.  Eaton  (since 
our  senator  at  Washington),  who  was  then  clerk  of  the  court, 
begged  the  lines  of  me  to  insert  in  the  Times,  where  they  ap- 
peared that  evening.  There  are  various  hits,  or  attempted 
hits,  in  them  which  will  not  be  understood  by  lawyers  who  have 
come  upon  the  stage  since,  and  which,  therefore,  need  explana- 
tion. Martin  Welles,  the  leader  for  the  plaintiff,  was  a  man  of 
great  legal  learning  and  ability,,  and  of  rare  elegance  of  diction, 
but  of  bad  temper,  morose  and- sullen,  and  with  little  friendly 
regard  for  him  on  the  part  of  the  bar.  Francis  Parsons,  who 
was  with  him,  wras  a  man  who  got  into  the  law  by  some  mis- 
chance, of  the  highest  principles,  yet  disliking  the  practicing  of 
law,  and  above  all  abhorring  all  fights  of  men  or  dogs.  Mr. 
Hungerford  \vas  an  old  bachelor,  immersed  in  the  law,  and 
hardly  breathing  anything  else,  living  wholly  out  of  society 
and  very  careless  about  his  clothing  or  personal  appearance. 
Mr.  Toucey,  who  had  been  Attorney-General  of  the  United 
States,  was  a  man  of  great  dignity  of  bearing,  cold,  impassive, 
and  unbending,  and  quite  out  of  place  among  the  humorous  in- 
cidents of  the  trial.  Charles  Chapman,  the  junior  counsel  for 
the  defendants,  was  in  his  element  in  the  case,  keen,  witty,  en- 
joying its  humor  to  the  utmost,  and  making  a  great  part  of  it. 
He  had  just  been  defeated  as  the  Whig  candidate  for  Congress 
by  Loren  P.  Waldo,  afterwards  judge  of  the  Superior  Court. 
During  the  campaign  he  had  made  speeches  in  which  he  ridi- 
culed three  Free  Soil  speakers  who  held  meetings  together 
about  the  state,  John  M.  Xiles,  Gideon  Welles,  and  Amos  M. 


DOG  FIGHT  SUIT. 


43 


Collins,  describing  them  as  "  a  Demarara  team  —  two  mules 
and  a  jackass."  Judge  Church,  who  presided,  was  a  short  man, 
whose  face,  as  he  watched  the  trial,  was  full  of  twinkles,  show- 
ing his  enjoyment  of  the  humor,  with  a  sense  of  his  duty  to 
preserve  his  judicial  dignity.  Mr.  Waterman  was  the  sheriff, 
and  made  proclamation  of  the  opening  and  closing  of  the  ses- 
sion. His  voice  was  almost  terrific  in  its  strength  and  volume, 
and  it  was  a  common  remark  among  the  lawyers  that  it  was  no 
fiction  that  he  made  proclamation  to  the  whole  county.  With 
these  explanations  I  come  to  the  lines. 

"Beware  of  Dogs."  —  Phil.  3:2. 

Dogs  and  dog-fights,  in  doggerel  lays, 
To  sing,  my  epic  muse  essays; 
Be  mine  the  labor,  hers  the  praise. 

Beneath  October's  mellow  sun, 
In  Wethersfield  a  deed  was  done  ; 
Oh,  deed  of  deeds !  oh,  sight  of  sights ! 
One  bull-dog  with  another  fights ! 

As  from  the  rape  of  Helen  grew 
The  war  which  mighty  Troy  o'erthrew, 
So  here,  a  bull-dog  shook  a  pup, 
Another  bull-dog  straight  took  up 
The  quarrel;  and  the  two  dogs  fought 
As  dogs  on  such  occasion  ought. 
Meantime  their  masters  swore  and  hollar'd ; 
Then  each  the  other  struck  and  collar 'd; 
One  broken  head,  one  bloody  jaw, 
The  parties  part,  and  go  to  law. 

Like  seed  upon  the  waters  cast, 
Forgotten  long,  but  found  at  last, 
So  after  lapse  of  many  days 
Occasioned  by  the  law's  delays, 
The  famous  suit  is  brought  to  trial. 
The  legal  angel  opes  his  vial; 
(That  is  to  say,  friend  Waterman 
Shouts  to  the  world  that  court's  begun ;) 
The  judge  with  dignity  assumes 
That  seat  which  no  one  more  illumes; 
Solemn  and  grave,  except  the  twinkles 
That  now  and  then  light  up  his  wrinkles. 
Within  their  seats  twelve  solemn  triers 
Sit  listening  to  as  many  —  liars. 
(The  counsel  here  I  don't  include, 
This  would  of  course  be  understood.) 
Along  the  table,  learnedly, 
Five  lawyers  sit  the  case  to  try  — 
On  one  side  two  —  on  th'  other  three  — 
In  numbers  matched  unequally, 


44 


REMINISCENCES. 

Like,  in  the  fight,  the  one  dog  who 
Fought  a  bull-dog  and  puppy  too. 
There  sits,  severe  and  cold,  the  ex- 
Attorney-general,  whose  specs 
Alone  can  into  mystery  pry 
Farther  than  many  a  lawyer's  eye. 
Then  comes  the  jurisprudent  sage 
Adorned  with  learning  as  with  age ; 
Who  knows  by  heart  each  legal  saw 
And  preaches  you  to  death  on  law; 
With  coat  unbrushed  and  hair  awry, 
Yet  heart  serene  and  humor  dry; 
Whose  life  and  heart  no  wife  e'er  blest, 
Yet  never  heaved  a  kinder  breast. 
To  make  a  "  Demarara  team," 
Friend  Oily  Gammon's  on  the  scheme; 
A  man  who  knows  all  legal  wiles, 
Yet  wears  the  while  such  winning  smiles, 
He'll  talk  a  jury's  eye  teeth  out, 
Nor  they  suspect  what  he's  about. 
Oh,  happy  that  the  public  call 
Could  spare  him  from  the  nation's  hall, 
And  leave  him  here  to  try  this  case, 
As  well  as  try  another  race. 

On  th'  other  side,  of  gravest  port, 
Sits  an  ex-judge  of  County  Court, 
Who  seems  to  view  this  strife  of  dogs, 
Much  as  a  Hebrew  looked  on  hogs. 
No  one  can  doubt  we  godly  are 
When  we  have  Parsons  at  our  bar. 
Beside  him  sits  the  plaintiff's  leader, 
Th'  expert  and  wary  special  pleader, 
Who  proves  that  truth  the  adage  tells 
That  says  truth  lies  at  bott'm  of  Wells; 
Though  some  who  claim  to  know  have  said 
Truth  sometimes  gets  up  to  his  head. 

Thus  marshaled  stood  they  —  and  they  fought 

As  in  such  case  such  lawyers  ought. 

The  parties  watched,  with  gaze  intense, 

The  fierce  assault,  the  firm  defense; 

And  as  the  battle  this  way  swayed 

The  other  party  looked  dismayed; 

Then,  as  the  scales  turned,  full  of  joy 

He  clapped  his  hands,  and  cried  "  stee-boy." 

And  thus  the  drama  found  its  close 
In  the  same  scene  in  which  it  rose ; 
The  parties'  bull-dogs  'gan  th'  affray. 
Their  lawyers'  squabbles  closed  the  day. 
Thus  ended  in  a  fierce  logomachy 
What  had  begun  a  fierce  dogomachy. 

MORAL. 

My  tale  has  this  impressive  moral  — 
Never  back  up  your  dog  in  quarrel. 


GIDEON  HALL. 


GIDEON  HALL. 


45 


The  later  generation  of  lawyers  who  did  not  know  Gideon 
Hall  of  Winsted,  in  Litchfield  County,  will  find  it  difficult  to 
realize  that  such  a  man  ever  had  a  place  at  the  bar,  and,  above 
all,  that  he  should  ever  have  been  elected  a  judge  of  our  Su- 
perior Court.  His  air  was  always  an  assuming  one,  and  his 
language,  especially  in  court,  where  he  always  seemed  to  wear 
a  barrister's  gown,  was  stilted  and  pedantic,  and  often  ir- 
resistibly laughable  in  his  efforts  to  be  impressive.  In  ex- 
amining a  witness  he  almost  always  prefaced  his  in- 
quiry by  the  remark,  "  I  will  now  propound  to  you  this  inter- 
rogatory." Having  inherited  a  moderate  property,  he  was 
able,  with  such  practice  as  he  had,  to  keep  a  very  respectable 
position  in  the  village  where  he  resided,  and  in  which  he  lived 
from  childhood  to  his  death  at  near  the  age  of  seventy.  At 
the  time  he  was  appointed  to  the  bench  our  judges  held  office 
for  terms  of  eight  years,  and  were  nominated  by  a  caucus  of  the 
members  of  the  General  Assembly  who  were  of  the  dominant 
political  party.  This  mode  of  supplying  our  judges  was  hap- 
pily soon  after  abandoned  for  our  present  one  of  having  the 
governor  nominate  them  and  the  General  Assembly  confirm. 
Mr.  Hall  had  a  weak  ambition  for  the  place,  and  got  it  by  a 
vote  of  the  caucus.  His  term  on  the  bench  was  an  utter  failure. 

I  know  of  nothing  that  better  illustrates  the  intellectual 
idiosyncracies  of  the  man  than  a  report  which  he  made  while 
at  the  bar,  in  1865,  in  a  divorce  case  in  which  he  had  been  ap- 
pointed by  the  Superior  Court  a  committee  to  hear  the  evi- 
dence and  find  the  facts.  The  report  itself  is  worth  preserving 
for  the  amusement  of  the  bar.  The  case  was  that  of  Phoebe 
J.  Tibbetts  vs.  Luther  C.  Tibbetts.  I  omit  the  first  part  of  Mr. 
Hall's  report.  After  stating  some  of  the  facts,  it  proceeds  thus: 

"  I  further  find  that,  till  his  acquaintance  with  the  said  Mrs. 
Neal,  in  the  fall  of  1862  or  thereabouts,  the  respondent's  de- 
portment as  a  husband  towards  the  petitioner  was  kind,  but 
that  from  that  time  prospectively  the  respondent's  former  af- 
fection for  the  petitioner  became  gradually  diminished;  until 
now,  largely  attributable  to  the  acts  and  intrigues  of  an  un- 
scrupulous woman,  the  petitioner,  wholly  blameless  for  the 
result,  has  become  the  subject  of  his  strong  aversion;  and  that, 
before  strangers  and  on  public  and  other  occasions,  in  a  con- 


46  REMINISCENCES. 

temptuous  and  offensive  manner,  and  without  cause,  he  has 
repeatedly  assailed  the  petitioner  with  language  and  epithets 
cruelly  severe  and  opprobious.  He  refused  to  acknowledge 
her  as  his  wife,  and  declared  that  he  would  never  live  with  her 
more;  that  he  would  no  longer  furnish  her  with  support  or  pro- 
vide for  her  a  home,  and  that  she  might  go  to  her  brother  or 
to  the  Devil.  He  has  accused  her  of  robbery  and  burglary, 
and  sneeringly  called  her  '  that  woman,'  '  deceitful,'  '  treacher- 
ous,' '  miserable  creature,'  'wretch,'  and  '  liar.' 

"  I  find  also  that  since  his  acquaintance  aforesaid  with  the 
said  Mrs.  Neal,  protracted  and  often-recurring  interviews  be- 
tween her  and  the  respondent  were  held,  in  evening  and  day- 
time, clandestinely  and  alone,  in  his  and  her  private  apart- 
ments, and  with  doors  frequently  locked;  and  their  reciprocal 
caressings  and  kissings  and  street  ambulations,  and  her  per- 
sistently offensive  intrusion,  and  improper  advances  and  at- 
tention to  the  respondent  in  presence  of  his  wife,  and  to  her 
exclusion  and  grief,  by  him  unrebuked,  but  tolerated  and  ap- 
proved, were,  as  between  the  said  Mrs.  Neal  and  the  respond- 
ent, of  common  occurrence.  And  that,  also,  on  two  different 
occasions,  the  said  Mrs.  Neal,  unattended  by  her  husband  (or 
friend  save  the  respondent),  and  the  respondent,  in  the  absence 
and  without  the  knowledge  of  the  petitioner,  traveled  in  com- 
pany, and  at  his  expense,  by  land  and  water,  and  in  their 
transit  by  the  latter  mode,  taking  passage  by  steamboat  in 
adjoining  rooms,  with  door  intercommunication  direct;  and, 
when  unknown  in  certain  hotels  in  which  they  were  guests, 
they  registered  their  names  as  '  L.  C.  Tibbets  and  Lady.' ' 

Judge  Hall  died  several  years  ago,  and  left  no  children  or 
other  near  relatives  who  would  feel  hurt  at  my  account  of  him. 

MARTIN  WELLES. 

Martin  Welles  was  a  striking  figure,  as  well  as  personality, 
at  our  bar.  He  died  in  1863,  in  his  75th  year.  In  an  obituary 
sketch  of  him  in  30  Conn.  Reports,  p.  607,  I  thus  described 
him: 

"  Mr.  Welles  had  an  intellect  of  great  original  force  and 
vigor,  disciplined  by  a  thorough  education,  and  well  furnished 
'by  professional  and  general  reading.  He  had  at  command  an 


MARTIN  WELLES,  47 

elegant  arid  classical  diction,  while  a  stately  form  and  dignified 
manner  gave  an  impressiveness  to  all  he  uttered  in  his  forensic 
and  public  addresses.  The  great  feature  of  his  character,  how- 
ever, was  his  will,  which,  for  a  firm  and  inflexible  resoluteness, 
has  rarely  been  surpassed.  Strong  and  clear  as  was  his  intel- 
lect, the  decision  of  character  for  which  he  was  remarkable 
was  less  the  result  of  intellectual  conclusions  than  of  the  de- 
terminations of  his  will.  With  him  to  resolve  was  to  execute, 
and  his  resolution  only  gained  strength  from  the  diffculties 
which  the  attempt  to  execute  it  encountered.  His  inflexible 
adherence  to  his  own  determination  almost  necessarily  brought 
him  into  conflict  with  others,  and,  as  he  had  little  tact  in  deal- 
ing with  men,  and  never  understood  how  to  conciliate  an 
enemy,  he  never  became  a  popular  man,  even  among  his 
political  friends,  and  in  consequence  failed  to  attain  in  public 
life  those  high  positions  in  the  state  or  nation  which,  with  so 
great  abilities,  he  might  otherwise  easily  have  secured,  and  his 
failure  to  attain  which  was  always  a  disappointment  to  him. 

He  rarely  gave  up  a  case  that  was  decided  against  him 
until  he  had  pursued  it  to  the  extreme  limit  of  the  legal  remedy, 
and  submitted  to  a  final  adverse  decision  only  as  to  an  ac- 
cumulated wrong  that  he  had  no  further  power  to  resist." 

Soon  after  the  above  was  published,  Judge  Butler,  in  the 
Supreme  Court  (then  an  associate  judge,  afterwards  Chief 
Justice),  leaned  over  the  bench  and  said  to  me  that  he  had  been 
reading  my  sketch  of  Mr.  Welles,  and  that  my  picture  of  him 
was  a  perfect  one,  and  that  he  had  been  greatly  entertained  by 
it. 

Mr.  Welles  had  so  often  had  cases  decided  against  him  in 
the  Supreme  Court  that  he  had  come  to  feel  a  personal  dislike 
for  all  the  judges,  and  was  in  the  habit  of  calling  the  court  "  a 
hospital  of  incurables." 

He  told  me  that  he  made  it  an  invariable  rule  never  to 
accept  as  a  referee  any  person  who  had  ever  in  any  circum- 
stances decided  a  case  as  referee  against  him. 

At  one  time  he  had  a  case  in  the  Superior  Court  in  which 
he  claimed  for  the  plaintiff  a  right  to  make  or  keep  up  a  dam 
across  a  small  stream.  The  court  made  a  finding  of  the  facts, 
and  decided  the  case  in  his  favor.  The  defendant,  however, 
carried  the  case  to  the  Supreme  Court,  and  that  court  reversed 


48  REMINISCENCES. 

the  judgment  of  the  lower  court,  and  denied  the  right  of  the 
plaintiff  to  maintain  the  dam.  When  the  decision  was  an- 
nounced at  the  opening  of  the  court  one  morning,  Mr.  Welles 
was  present.  He  had  expected  a  decision  in  favor  of  his  client, 
and  was  fairly  livid  with  rage  as  he  heard  the  adverse  decision 
announced.  Wisely  he  seized  his  hat  and  bolted  out  of  the 
court  room.  Every  one  saw  the  state  of  mind  he  was  in.  After 
he  had  gone,  I  scribbled  the  following  lines,  and  handed  them 
up  to  the  Chief  Justice : 

The  court  below,  as  it  would  seem, 
Decreed  that  plaintiff  dam  the  stream  ; 
But  this  's  reversed  on  last  resort, 
And  now  the  plaintiff  damns  the  court. 

The  Chief  Justice  was  greatly  amused,  and  handed  the  squib 
to  the  other  judges,  who  laughed  heartily  over  it,  and  thence 
it  came  to  the  lawyers  who  were  sitting  within  the  bar,  and, 
finally,  got  into  the  next  day's  papers. 


CHARLES  CHAPMAN. 

Charles  Chapman  was,  in  his  time,  the  most  brilliant  advo- 
cate of  the  Connecticut  bar.  Only  the  older  members  of  our 
profession  can  have  any  personal  recollection  of  him,  as  he 
died  in  1869.  He  was  at  that  time  seventy  years  old.  In  an 
obituary  notice  of  him,  prepared  by  me  for  the  law  reports 
and  published  in  the  35th  vol.  of  Conn.  Reports,  I  characterized 
him  as  follows : 

"  Mr.  Chapman  seemed  to  be  in  his  natural  element  in 
the  trial  of  causes  before  a  jury.  The  more  desperate  his  case 
the  more  he  seemed  to  be  inspired  by  it.  His  resources  were 
inexhaustible.  His  power  in  addressing  a  jury  was  very  re- 
markable. In  the  examination  of  witnesses  and  the  sifting  of 
evidence  he  had  no  superior;  it  seemed  impossible  for  a  false- 
hood to  elude  him.  His  sarcasm,  when  he  thought  the  oc- 
casion demanded  it,  was  terrible.  He  had  command  of  a  mas- 
terly English,  which  he  compacted  into  sentences  generally  of 
finished  eloquence,  often  of  dramatic  power.  His  wit  was 
always  keen  and  ever  in  hand;  nobody  approached  him  in 
readiness  of  retort.  He  did  not  move  his  hearers,  as  the 
greatest  orators  do,  by  being  profoundly  impressed  himself 


CHARLES  CHAPMAN. 


49 


and  carrying  them  along  by  sympathy.  The  process  with  him 
was  wholly  intellectual.  Cool  himself,  and  with  a  perfect  com- 
prehension of  the  subtlest  springs  of  human  feeling  and  action, 
he  played  with  his  audience  like  a  magician.  Wit,  pathos, 
humor,  invective,  fancy,  logic  —  all  seemed  to  combine  and 
take  their  turn  in  sweeping  everything  before  them.  In  his 
delivery  he  was  entirely  natural,  and  his  manner  unstudied. 
He  was  very  social  in  his  nature,  a  remarkably  good  talker, 
and  incomparable  and  inexhaustible  as  a  story-teller.  Many 
of  his  felicities  of  speech  and  story  will  long  survive  among 
the  festive  traditions  of  the  bar." 

His  perpetual  flow  of  humor  was  well  characterized  by-  a 
rough  countryman  who  one  day  was  listening  outside  the  bar 
to  his  talk  to  the  jury,  and  was  shaking  with  laughter.  I  knew 
the  man  well,  and  as  I  passed  by  him  on  my  way  within  the 
bar,  he  said  to  me,  "  What  a  tremendous  wiggle  that  creetur 
has  to  his  tail." 

To  a  sanctimonious.  Baptist  clergyman,  whom  he  was 
cross-examining  as  a  witness,  and  who  had  said  in  reply  to  a 
question  as  to  his  calling,  that  he  "  aimed  to  be  a  humble 
candle  of  the  Lord,"  Mr.  Chapman  said,  "  A  dipt  candle,  I 
suppose." 

In  the  old  days  of  the  County  Court  there  were  two 
brothers  named  Watson,  from  East  Windsor,  who  had  for  a 
long  time  been  in  a  quarrel  over  the  division  of  their  father's 
property,  and  who  each  had  a  suit  against  the  other  in  almost 
evenr  term  of  the  court.  The  case  was  much  like  the  old 
feudal  quarrels,  in  that  each  kept  a  band  of  retainers,  who  al- 
ways came  to  court  with  their  chiefs,  and  were  always  their 
witnesses,  no  matter  what  the  case  was.  At  the  trial  of  one  of 
these  cases  the  witnesses  of  one  of  the  parties  were  sitting 
in  a  long  row  on  a  bench  along  the  wall,  just  outside  of  the  bar, 
the  railing  of  the  bar  covering  up  from  view  all  below  their 
waists.  Mr.  Chapman,  who  was  standing  counsel  for  the 
other  party,  was  addressing  the  jury.  He  commended  the  pa- 
tience of  his  client,  who  had  so  much  to  bear  from  his  malicious 
and  litigious  brother,  who  brought  a  suit  against  him  at  every 
term  of  the  court,  "  and  (said  he)  what  is  very  remarkable,  he 
brings  the  same  set  of  witnesses  with  him  at  every  trial.  No 
matter  what  the  case  is,  there  always  comes  the  same  set  of 


50  REMINISCENCES. 

loose  fellows  to  testify  for  him.  Why,  gentlemen,  look  at 
them ;  there  they  sit  —  familiar  as  a  gallery  of  family  por- 
traits." Mr.  Chapman  said  nothing  of  the  other  party  that 
the  opposing  counsel  could  not  have  said  of  his  own  client, 
but  he  was  not  embarrassed  in  his  invective  by  this  hazard. 

He  was  one  day  asking  the  court  to  allow  him  to  amend 
a  writ  in  which  he  had  discovered  a  serious  error.  At  that  time 
it  was  not  so  easy  as  in  later  years  to  get  the  court  to  allow  an 
amendment  without  paying  costs  to  the  other  party.  Mr. 
Chapman  closed  his  address  to  the  court  upon  the  subject 
with  this  "  amended  "  quotation : 

"  To  err  is  human ;  to  allow  an  amendment  of  an  error 
without  cost  is  divine." 

He  told  me  that  once  in  his  early  experience  he  was  trying 
a  case  before  a  justice  of  the  peace,  and  had  to  cross-examine 
a  young  woman  brought  as  a  witness  by  the  other  side.  She 
had  sharp,  black  eyes,  was  full  of  quick  temper,  and  was  greatly 
irritated  by  his  cross-questioning.  At  last  she  stood  mute, 
and  refused  to  answer.  Mr.  Chapman  repeated  his  question, 
but  she  still  stood  defiantly  mute.  He  finally  appealed  to  the 
justice,  who  told  her  that  she  must  answer.  At  this  she  let  off 
an  answer  that  was  enough  to  take  one's  head  off,  and  said, 
"  Have  you  got  it  now,  Mr.  Nimblechops?  " 

One  of  the  finest  incidents  that  I  ever  saw  in  the  court  room 
was  what  occurred  in  the  trial  of  the  action  of  Case  vs.  Marks 
in  the  Superior  Court,  about  the  year  1850.  Miss  Case,  the 
plaintiff,  was  a  school  teacher  in  one  of  our  country  schools, 
and  had,  in  some  way,  incurred  the  hostility  of  Marks,  who  set 
out  to  ruin  her  reputation  and  compel  her  to  leave  the  school. 
The  slander  was  of  the  worst  conceivable  kind.  After  bearing 
it  a  while,  she  brought  a  suit  against  him  for  it,  and  Mr.  Chap- 
man was  her  principal  counsel.  The  court  room  was  crowded 
with  people  from  the  town.  Miss  Case  was  a  very  modest  and 
sensible  looking  girl,  whose  mere  appearance  was  enough  to 
show  the  extreme  improbability  of  Marks's  charge  being  true. 
Marks  was  a  very  tall,  lank  man,  not  at  all  prepossessing  in  his 
appearance.  He  set  up  the  truth  of  his  charges,  and  brought  a 
set  of  vile-looking  men  to  testify  for  him.  They  were  thor- 
oughly broken  down  by  Mr.  Chapman's  cross-examination, 
and  her  innocence  was  made  clear  by  other  evidence.  In  Mr. 


CHARLES  CHAPMAN.  51 

Chapman's  address  to  the  jury  he  gave  Marks  a  terrible  ex- 
coriation. I  have  never  heard  a  more  terrific  invective.  The 
whole  audience,  outside  of  Marks's  friends,  was  with  him.  In 
the  midst  of  it  Marks,  thinking  a  little  bravado  would  help  him, 
rose  up,  high  above  the  heads  of  the  crowd,  and  scowled  at 
Mr.  Chapman.  He  sat  in  the  rear  of  his  counsel,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  table,  bringing  him  a  little  in  Mr.  Chapman's  rear, 
and  some  ten  feet  from  him.  Mr.  Chapman  did  not  see  him 
for  a  moment,  but  the  excitement  in  the  court  room  was  no- 
ticed by  him,  and  he  turned  a  little  and  saw  the  tall,  ungainly 
figure  of  Marks.  He  was  taken  aback  for  an  instant,  but  very 
quickly  gathered  himself  up,  and  stretching  out  his  right  arm 
and  pointing  his  finger  at  Marks,  he  turned  to  the  jury  and 
said  in  a  slow,  shrill  voice:  "  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  behold 
the  brazen  statue  of  a  SLANDERER."  He  kept  his  arm  out- 
stretched and  his  finger  pointing,  and  would  have  stood  so  as 
long  as  Marks  had  kept  his  position,  but  the  latter  soon  began 
to  settle  down  slowly,  and  finally  got  into  his  seat.  The  jury, 
of  course, -gave  the  plaintiff  their  verdict,  and  it  was  a  heavy 
one  for  that  day.  One  of  the  jurymen  told  me  that  Marks's  at- 
tempted bravado  added  five  hundred  dollars  to  the  verdict 
against  him. 

About  1845,  when  I  had  been  about  four  years  at  the  bar, 
I  brought  a  suit  for  a  Mr.  Deming  of  Farmington  (I  then  lived 
in  Farmington)  against  a  horse  jockey,  whose  name  I  forget, 
which  was  afterwards  tried  in  the  Superior  Court.  I  was 
alone  for  the  plaintiff,  and  Mr.  Chapman  was  employed  by  the 
defendant.  The  case  was  a  very  clear  one  for  my  client.  It 
appeared  that  the  defendant,  who  was  a  regular  horse-trader, 
called  on  Deming  with  a  fine-looking  pair  of  black  horses 
which  he  wished  to  sell.  Deming  said  that  he  wanted  a  pair 
of  gentle  family  horses.  The  defendant  told  him  that  these 
were  just  the  ones  —  that  his  daughter,  but  thirteen  years  old, 
had  several  times  driven  them,  and  that  they  were  perfect 
family  horses.  The  first  time  they  were  brought  up  for  Dem- 
ing to  take  his  family  to  ride,  they  started  off  before  the  people 
could  get  in ;  knocked  down  a  gate-post,  and  ran  a  mile  before 
they  were  stopped,  having  utterly  demolished  the  carriage. 
We  found  evidence,  and  had  it  at  the  trial,  that  the  only  driving 
of  the  horses  that  his  daughter  had  ever  done  was  to  sit  in  the 


52  REMINISCENCES. 

carriage  and  hold  the  reins  while  he  had  walked  backwards  a 
few  rods  in  front  of  the  team.  When  Mr.  Chapman  came  to 
address  the  jury  there  was  not  an  honest  word  that  he  could 
say,  and  so  he  entertained  them  for  an  hour  with  horse  stories 
that  kept  them  shaking  with  laughter.  Finally  he  took  up 
the  subject  of  my  horse  —  a  fine  animal,  but  singularly  marked, 
having  a  white  face  and  breast,  and  a  darkish  red  color  over  the 
rest  of  the  body.  "  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  did  you  ever  see 
Brother  Hooker's  horse?  You  go  into  nis  stable  and  see  him 
in  his  stall,  and  you  would  swear  that  he  kept  a  red  horse; 
you  see  his  man  lead  him  out,  and  you'd  swear  that  he  kept  a 
white  one.  You  see  him  coming  into  the  city  in  the  morning, 
and  you  would  swear  that  he  drove  in  with  a  white  horse ;  you 
see  him  driving  home  at  night,  and  you'd  swear  he  drove  home 
a  red  one."  At  every  available  point  he  would  bring  in  the 
refrain,  "  Red  behind  and  white  in  front,"  at  every  repetition 
of  which  the  jury  would  explode  with  laughter.  With  this 
amusing  episode  he  concluded  his  address  to  the  jury.  When 
I  came  to  reply,  after  alluding  to  his  anecdotes  as  having  left 
him  no  time  for  argument,  I  said:  "  My  Brother  Chapman  has 
entertained  you  very  greatly,  gentlemen,  with  an  amusing 
description  of  my  horse,  and  especially  with  his  frequent  re- 
frain of  "  Red  behind  and  white  in  front."  All  I  will  say  in 
reply  is,  that  if,  when  he  was  a  boy,  his  father  had  more  often 
made  him  look  red  behind  and  white  in  front,  it  would  have 
been  better  for  his  morals." 

The  jurymen  and  all  the  audience  burst  out  into  a  loud 
laugh,  and  Mr.  Chapman's  pyramid  of  stories  was  all  toppled 
to  the  ground.  We  got  a  good  verdict,  after  the  jury  had  been 
out  but  a  few  minutes. 

A  few  years  after  I  was  arguing  a  case  before  the  Supreme 
Court,  with  Mr.  Chapman  against  me.  There  were  some 
horse-trade  elements  in  the  case,  and  something  that  I  said  in 
my  argument  brought  to  his  mind  this  little  passage  between 
us.  He  interrupted  me  by  saying,  "  Hooker,  tell  the  court 
that  story  about  '  red  behind  and  white  in  front.' "  "Oh," 
said  I,  "  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  case."  "  Well,"  said 
Chapman,  "  the  Chief  Justice  is  fond  of  a  good  horse,  and  of 
a  good  horse  story."  Chief  Justice  Butler  spoke  up,  "  If  it's 
a  good  horse  story,  Mr.  Hooker,  give  it  to  us."  So  I  told  the 


RICHARD  D.  HUB  BARD. 


53 


whole  story,  and  the  Chief  Justice  laughed  over  it  till  it  seemed 
as  if  he  would  fall  out  of  his  seat. 


RICHARD  D.  HUBBARD. 

The  character  of  Governor  Hubbard,  both  professional 
and  personal,  has  been  sketched  by  me  in  an  obituary  notice  of 
him  in  Volume  50,  Conn.  Law  Reports,  p.  604.  I  shall  here 
speak  only  of  certain  personal  qualities  that  were  but  little  ob- 
served by  the  public,  and  which  it  is  specially  proper  that  I 
should  notice  in  these  reminiscences,  as  they  brought  us  into 
very  friendly  personal  relations. 

Governor  Hubbard  came  to  the  bar  about  a  year  after  I 
did,  and  we  were  thereafter  fellow-members  of  the  Hartford 
bar.  I  observed  his  progress  in  the  profession  with  most 
brotherly  interest,  and,  though  he  soon  outstripped  me  in  the 
race,  it  never  occurred  to  me  to  regard  his  greater  success  in- 
vidiously. I  saw  less  of  him  for  the  first  ten  years,  as  I  was  then 
living  in  Farmington,  but  I  often  met  him  in  the  court  room, 
and  on  my  removal  to  Hartford  we  became  warm  and  faithful 
friends.  Among  letters  that  I  received  from  him,  especially  in 
the  latter  part  of  his  life,  I  find  several  among  my  papers 
that  I  am  sure  will  be  read  by  the  profession  with  interest,  as 
exhibiting  the  fine  qualities  of  his  nature  that  I  have  adverted 
to.  I  take  them  by  their  dates,  and  with  no  attempt  (except 
in  one  case)  to  give  my  side  of  the  correspondence.  Indeed, 
my  letters  to  him  were  probably  not  preserved  by  him.  The 
letters  often  show  the  occasion  that  called  them  out,  and  where 
they  do  not  I  thought  it  not  best  to  occupy  space  with  stating 
the  but  half-remembered  occasion. 

HARTFORD,  April  20,  1874. 
My  Dear  Hooker  : 

I  write  to  tell  you  how  glad  I  am  you  are  going  to  Europe  —  almost 
as  glad  as  if  I  were  going  myself.  No  good  fortune  can  come  to  you 
that  I  will  not  rejoice  in.  God  go  with  you,  my  friend — bring  repose  to 
weary  nerves  and  cudgelled  brain  —  bring  you  back  in  health  and  safety  • 
and  preserve  in  your  memory  a  kindly  recollection  of  him  who  now  bids 
you  a  loving  adieu.  May  the  ocean,  perfidious  to  others  of  late,  be  kindly 
to  you. 

Believe  me,  with  the  most  friendly  regards,  very  truly  yours, 

R.  D.  HUBBARD. 


54 


REMINISCENCES. 


HARTFORD,  Sept.  16,  1874. 

God  bless  you,  John  Hooker,  and  welcome  home.  Your  friendly 
words  are  beyond  price.  I  used  to  rub  against  and  know  something  o 
you  when  you  were  in  practice.*  But  you  seem  to  me,  since  then,  to  have 
held  yourself  aloof  from  your  professional  associates,  which  I  have  often 
and  much  regretted.  Nevertheless,  I  have  never  allowed  my  regard  for 
you  —  which  is  greater  than  you  know  —  to  diminish  one  hair's  breadth. 

I  cannot  see  and  feel  and  lay  hold  of  the  life  beyond  as  you  do.  I 
know  not  if  it  be  those  glorious  things  for  the  elect  which  glorious  old 
John  Bunyan  saw  in  visions,  and  those  dreadful  things  for  the  non-elec 
which  John  Calvin  eviscerated  from  his  infernal  brain;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  "  infinite  azure"  of  Prof.  Tyndall's,  if  anybody  knows  what 
that  means.  But  what  I  do  know  is,  that  in  what  remains  of  the  little 
span  of  the  life  that  now  is,  whilst  I  agree  with  you  in  few  things,  or,  at 
least,  in  few  theological  dogmas,  I  love  you  in  all  things  as  a  man  whose 
heart  and  life  are  infinitely  better  than  his  theology. 

Accept,  my  dear  fellow,  a  thousand  assurances  of  friendly  regard 
from  the  poor  groundling  whose  eyes  see  not  the  things  which  you  see, 
and  whose  ears  hear  not  the  things  which  you  hear,  but  whose  eyes  are 
not  blind  and  whose  ears  are  not  deaf  to  the  least  proof  of  affection  from 
his  friends,  and  least  of  all  from  you,  John  Hooker. 

Ever  and  truly  yours,  R.  D.  HUBBARD. 

JANUARY  i,  1875. 

God  bless  us  both,  my  dear  John.  The  year  of  grace,  '75,  has  over- 
taken us.  Eheufugaces,  etc.  It  seems  like  yesterday  or  the  day  before 
that  you  and  I  took  a  ride  together  from  Farmington  in.  'Twas  some 
petty  business  that  we  had  there.  For  the  life  of  me  I  can  remember 
nothing  of  it.  Only  I  know  that,  whereas  before  you  had  seemed  to  me 
all  polar,  you  then  opened  up  all  tropical.  You  have  forgotten  it.  Well, 
no  matter. 

'Twere  something  if  I  were  ambitious,  as  the  great  cardinal  was,  to 
have  such  an  "  Honest  Griffith  "  as  you  for  a  "  chronicler."  But  no  more 
of  that  "  an  thou  lovest  me."  The  earth  is  all  glorious  to  me  still,  and 
the  heavens  infinitely  deep  and  blue.  I  would  not  willingly  come  to  "  a 
little  earth  for  charity  "  as  yet.  Nor  would  I  have  you.  But  if  I  should 
out-tarry  you,  trust  me  for  a  kindly  word,  my  good  fellow,  if  heart  and 
brain  survive. 

Sam.  Bowles  is  a  trump,  and  publishes  the  best  paper  in  the  United 
States.  God  save  all  such,  and  let  Ben.  Butler  go  to  his  own  without  de- 
lay or  hindrance,  and  with  him  all  such  as  he. 

Your  friend,  R.  D.  HUBBARD. 


*  Referring  to  my  acceptance  of  the  office  of  Reporter  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
1858,  and  my  final  withdrawal  from  ordinary  practice  in  court. 


RICHARD  D.   HUB  BARD.  55 

HARTFORD,  Nov.  29, 1876. 
My  Dear  John  Hooker  : 

Health  and  benedictions  !  Yours  with  enclosure  this  moment  re- 
ceived. Enclosure  reserved,  as  per  your  advice,  to  accompany  my  cigar 
this  evening. 

Meanwhile,  the  blessings  of  the  heavens  above  and  the  deep  that 
coucheth  beneath,  and  all  other  blessings  in  store  for  the  elect  (among 
whom  I  doubt  not  you  are  numbered),  rest  upon  your  honest  head  and 
thinking  brain.  Your  friend,  R.  D.  HUBBARD. 

SUNDAY  EVENING,  Dec.  3,  1876. 
My  Dear  Hooker  : 

[The  letter  is  mainly  taken  up  with  a  discussion  of  some  points  suggested  by  the 
"  enclosure  "  referred  to  in  the  last  letter.    It  then  proceeds  as  follows  :] 

Meanwhile,  the  years  fly  like  weavers'  shuttles  ;  the  almond  tree  blos- 
soms and  the  sun  westers,  and  eras  ingens  iterabimus  aquor.  See  all 
that  remains  of  my  scanty  Horace,  brought  to  mind  by  the  little  that  re- 
mains of  my  poor  self.  But  what  little  remains,  my  dear  fellow,  and 
while  that  little  remains,  believe  me,  with  the  sincerest  assurances  of  re- 
gard for  one  whose  heart  and  mind  I  believe  to  be  as  honest  as  the  day, 
and  whose  faith,  unlike  mine,  lays  hold  on  the  high  heavens  — 

Most  truly  your  friend,  R.  D.  HUBBARD. 

Mr.  Hubbard  became  Governor  of  the  state  at  the  begin- 
ning of  1877.  The  following  note  is  in  reply  to  one  I  sent  him, 
congratulating  him  on  his  accession  to  the  office. 

HARTFORD,  Sunday,  Jan.  7,  1877. 
My  Dear  John  Hooker : 

Any  kind  word  from  you  provokes  me  to  a  kind  acknowledgment,  and 
so  I  thank  you,  my  good  friend,  for  your  too  appreciative  note. 

I  was  never  intended  for  public  life,  and,  I  begin  to  think,  for  little 
else  of  any  account.     But  hold  me  always  for  your  friend  and  admirer 
and  believe  me,  my  dear  fellow, 

Most  sincerely  yours,  R.  D.  HUBBARD. 

I  find  that  I  preserved  a  copy  of  a  letter  which  I  wrote 
Governor  Hubbard  in  April,  1878,  and  insert  it  here  as  neces- 
sary to  the  understanding  of  his  reply: 

HARTFORD,  April  7,  1878,  Sunday  P.  M. 
My  Dear  Governor  Hubbard : 

I  like  your  Fast  Day  proclamation.  It  is  first-rate.  Do  you,  suc- 
cessor (and  more  and  more  worthy  one)  of  the  sturdy  Puritan  governors 
of  Connecticut,  turn  your  thoughts  inward  and  study  yourself,  so  as  to 


5  6  REMINISCENCES. 

observe  that  your  governorship  (which  may  the  Lord  continue  for  many 
years)  is  doing  a  certain  fine  moral  work  upon  you  ?  I  have  seen  and  re- 
joiced over  it  for  many  months.  You  are  feeling  the  responsibility  that 
the  office  carries  with  it,  and  are  meeting  it  nobly.  Even  to  my  most 
friendly  observation  you  have  seemed  in  time  past  not  wholly  unwilling 
to  shirk  a  good  many  responsibilities  that  rested  on  you  as  a  member  of 
society,  and  especially  as  a  foremost  man. 

You  would  have  knocked  down  a  knave  if  he  had  jostled  you  ;  but 
you  did  not  seem  to  feel  as  if  you  had  any  special  call  to  go  around  with 
a  lantern  and  hunt  up  dishonest  men  in  their  hiding-places,  and  especially 
to  pull  off  your  coat  and  tug  at  the  world  to  turn  it  over  right  side  up. 
Well,  now  has  come  to  you  a  special  opportunity,  and  you  seem  both  to 
see  it  and  to  feel  its  responsibility.  I  thank  God  for  it  all,  and  am  glad 
that  my  humble  vote  helped  to  make  the  majority  that  elected  you. 
Macte,  puer,  novd  virtute. 

May  the  Lord  bless  you,  dear  Governor,  and  bless  you  long  as 
Governor,  and  thus  bless  the  world,  and  with  the  rest  your  friend, 

J.  HOOKER. 

SUNDAY,  April  14,  1878. 

I  do  introvert,  my  good  friend,  and  much  more  than  you  think,  and 
I  find  myself  without  any  real  length,  breadth,  or  depth  ;  but  when_y0# 
praise  me  I  grow  for  a  moment  in  my  own  estimation.  There  does  not 
live  on  the  earth  a  creature  I  would  have  asked  to  vote  for  me,  even  by 
the  remotest  hint  or  indirection,  but  I  wish  you  could  know  how  much 
pleasure  it  gave  me  when  I  learned  I  had  your  vote. 

I  am  a  shirk.  I  know  it.  No  one  else  knows  it  so  well.  I  can't  tell 
you  with  what  a  reluctance,  what  a  drowning  bark,  I  came  to  my  office. 
Being  obliged  to  enter  on  its  duties  I  have  discharged  them  with  inde- 
pendence and  honesty.  So  much  I  dare  say — beyond  that  I  dare  not. 
I  have  been  ambitious  not  to  shame  the  friends  who  have  supported 
me.  I  have  no  other  ambition.  I  was  not  made  for  a  great  man,  or  for 
public  position.  I  lack  all  the  elements  necessary  for  public  life.  In 
other  words,  I  am  a  shirk.  That's  just  the  plain  truth,  and  I  cannot 
make  myself  other  than  I  am. 

Now,  my  good  friend,  ten  thousand  thanks  for  your  too  kind  words. 
Coming  from  you,  I  prize  them  as  if  they  were  of  gold.  I  know  you  see 
beyond  the  curtain  what  I  cannot.  You  touch  the  heavens  while  I  grope 
under  them.  Serus  redeas,  etc. 

With  a  world  of  friendly  regards  and  grateful  acknowledgments, 
Truly  your  friend,  R.  D.  HUBBARD. 

Governor  Hubbard,  in  his  first  message  to  the  General  As- 
sembly, stated  in  very  strong  terms  the  injustice  done  to  mar- 


RICHARD  D.   HUB  BARD. 


57 


ried  women  in  respect  to  their  property  by  the  law  as  it  stood, 
being  the  ancient  English  law  with  a  few  recent  modifications ; 
and  soon  after  he  sent  for  me  and  requested  me  to  draft  a  bill 
for  a  public  act  securing  equal  rights  to  women  with  regard 
to  their  property  with  the  rights  of  men  with  regard  to  theirs. 
This  required  a  fundamental  change  in  the  law  of  husband 
and  wife,  and  an  abandonment  of  the  old  idea  of  the  superior 
rights  of  the  husband.  I  drew  the  bill  with  much  care,  and 
on  its  being  submitted  to  Governor  Hubbard,  he  accepted  it 
without  change,  except  that  a  section  in  which  I  had  provided 
for  direct  conveyances  and  transfers  of  property  between  hus- 
band and  wife,  he  thought,  in  spite  of  safeguards  which  I  had 
thrown  about  it,  presented  an  opportunity  for  defrauding  cred- 
itors, and  this  section  was  stricken  out.  This  was  the  act  of 
1877  with  regard  to  the  property  rights  of  married  women,  an 
act  which  very  soon  received,  and  has  ever  since  held,  the  full 
acquiescence  of  the  legal  profession  and  the  public,  and  still 
holds  its  place  on  the  statute  book  without  material  change. 

After  the  bill  was  passed  my  wife  sent  a  copy  of  it  to  my 
friend  Samuel  Bowles,  editor  of  the  Springfield  Republican. 
In  his  reply,  dated  March  28,  1877,  he  speaks  very  strongly  in 
approbation  of  the  act,  calling  it  a  great  step  forward,  and  says: 

We  owe  its  success,  first,  to  the  right  of  the  matter ;  second,  to  the 
agitation  of  the  whole  question,  which  has  disseminated  the  perception 
of  that  right ;  third,  to  you  and  your  husband  in  particular  ;  and,  fourth, 
to  the  fact  that  you  had  in  Connecticut  this  year  a  governor  who  was 
recognized  as  the  leading  lawyer  of  the  state,  a  genuine  natural  conserv- 
ative, who  yet  said  the  measure  was  right  and  ought  to  go.  It  is  this 
last  element  that  has  given  Connecticut  its  chief  leadership.  It  is  a 
bigger  thing  than  it  seems  at  first,  to  have  an  eminent  conservative  law- 
yer on  the  side  of  such  legislative  reform.  With  such  things  going  for- 
ward in  national  politics  and  such  a  sign  in  the  heavens  as  this  in  Con- 
necticut, we  ought  to  be  very  happy,  and  I  believe  I  am  —  spite  of  debts, 
hard  work  and  fatigue,  and  more  or  less  chronic  invalidism.  At  any 
rate,  I  salute  you  both  with  honor  and  with  affection,  and  am  very  faith- 
fully yours,  SAM'L  BOWLES. 

Mrs.  Hooker  sent  a  copy  of  this  letter  to  Governor  Hub- 
bard,  from  whom  she  received  the  following  reply: 


58  REMINISCENCES. 

EASTER,  April  i,  1877. 
My  Good  Friend : 

'Twas  a  "  Good  Friday"  indeed  that  brought  your  friendly  message. 
And  what  a  gracious  and  dainty  epistle  Sam.  Bowles  does  know  how  to 
write  !  He  is  a  good  fellow,  upon  my  word  ;  full  of  generous  instincts 
and  ideas.  He  ought  to  be  at  the  head  of  the  London  Times,  and  master 
of  all  the  wealth  it  brings.  Add  to  this  that  the  Good  Physician  should 
heal  him  of  his  "  chronic  invalidism,"  and  then  —  well,  what's  the  use  of 
dreaming  ? 

Thank  yourself  and  such  as  you  for  what  there  is  of  progress 
in  respect  of  women's  rights  amongst  us.  I  do  believe  the  bill  is  a 
"  great  step  forward."  "Alas,"  says  our  friend  Mr.  Robinson,  "it  has 
destroyed  the  divine  conception  of  the  unity  of  husband  and  wife."  As 
divine,  upon  my  soul,  as  the  unity  of  the  lamb  and  the  devouring  wolf. 
Half  the  abasement  of  woman  has  been  and  is  due  to  theology.  Out 
upon  it!  half  of  it,  I  mean;  and  live  the  better  for  the  other  half.  Pardon 
me,  my  good  friend,  that  I  am  skeptical.  I  believe  in  half  as  well  as  I 
know  how.  God  help  my  unbelief,  for  I  grope. 

But_enough  of  this.  I  salute  you,  my  good  friend,  with  a  thousand 
salutations  of  respect  and  admiration.  I  do  not  agree  with  you  in  all 
things  ;  still  less  with  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians;  but  I  cannot 
tell  you  how  much  I  glorify  you  for  your  courage  and  devotion  to  woman- 
hood. I  am  a  pretty  poor  stick  for  anything  like  good  work  in  the  world; 
but  I  am  not  without  respect  for  it  in  others.  And  so  I  present  myself  to 
yourself  and  to  your  good  and  noble  husband,  whom  I  take  to  be  one  of 
the  best,  with  my  assurances  of  affection  and  esteem. 

Do  you  think  your  husband  would  ever  have  written  that  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians?  I  trow  not. 

Thanking  you  for  your  kind  letter,  I  remain,  my  dear  madam, 
Yours  very  truly,  R.  D.  HUBBARD. 

Governor  Hubbard,  in  one  of  his  letters,  speaks  about  his 
dissent  from  my  theological  dogmas.  It  is  only  justice  to  my- 
self to  state  that  our  occasional  conversations  on  religious  sub- 
jects were  almost  invariably  practical  and  personal.  I  never 
held  with  any  tenacity,  certainly  in  my  maturer  life,  to  the 
Calvinistic  dogmas,  and  certainly  never  pressed  them  upon 
him.  Perhaps  I  cannot  better  present  to  the  readers  of  this 
memorial  of  my  friend  the  kind  of  talks  we  had  together  on  re- 
ligious subjects  than  by  giving  an  account  of  a  conversation  one 
evening  at  his  house,  about  1875.  He  had  invited  me  to  din- 
ner. Mrs.  Hubbard  was  absent,  and  after  dinner  Governor 
Hubbard  sat  down  with  me  by  the  parlor  fire,  and  we  spent 


RICHARD  D.  HUBBARD.  59 

the  whole  evening  in  talk.  Our  conversation  ran  over  a  wide 
field,  but  when  we  got  upon  the  subject  of  religion  we  spent  a 
large  part  of  an  hour  upon  it.  He  told  me  of  the  impossibility 
of  his  seeing  "  beyond  the  veil,"  as  I  seemed  to  do,  while  at 
the  same  time  fearing  those  dreadful  realities  that  the  orthodox 
theology  had  so  long  held  and  taught.  I  told  him  that  we 
could  never  have  our  eyes  opened  to  divine  truth  except  by 
doing  our  full  duty  to  God  and  man.  The  Scriptures  told  us 
that  it  was  by  doing  the  will  of  God  that  we  came  to  know 
the  truth  of  God.  Now  (said  I)  it  is  very  plain  to  me  how  you 
ought  to  begin  if  you  would  get  this  knowledge.  You  are  an 
Episcopalian.  How  simple  a  thing  for  you  every  morning  to 
get  your  family  together  and  read  with  them  your  form  of 
morning  prayer.  It  is  a  very  different  thing  from  what  it 
would  be  to  begin  with  making  an  extemporaneous  prayer. 
Just  think  of  it;  your  children  never  heard  you  pray.  I  would 
not  have  that  true  of  myself  and  my  children  for  all  the  wealth 
that  could  be  showered  upon  me.  You  don't  know  what  a 
saving  influence  it  might  have  upon  your  children.  He  replied 
that  he  did  not  feel  as  if  he  could  do  it.  We  talked  it  over  at 
a  good  deal  of  length,  he  receiving  most  kindly  and  in  an  inter- 
ested way  w-hat  I  had  to  say ;  but  I  came  away  with  the  feeling 
that  he  would  never  make  the  experiment,  and  I  think  he  never 
did.  A  friend  told  me  not  long  after  that  Governor  Hubbard 
had  told  him  of  our  conversation. 

A  few  years  before  his  death  there  came  into  Governor 
Hubbard's  life  a  deep  sorrow  —  too  deep  to  admit  of  any  direct 
allusion  to  it  on  the  part  of  the  friends  who  \vould  gladly  have 
comforted  him.  I  wrote  him  the  following  note: 

March  3otb. 
Dear  Hubbard : 

Remember  that  my  wife  and  I  love  you  dearly. 

Affectionately,  J.  H. 

There  came  this  answer. 

April  ist. 
My  Dear  Friend: 

I  wish  I  could  thank  you  and  your  wife  as  you  deserve.      But  words 
are  beggarly,  and  I  am  perplexed  beyond  measure. 
God  bless  you,  my  dear  Hooker. 

I  shall  remember  your  goodness  with  love  and  gratitude  to  the  end. 
Ever  and  faithfully  yours,  R.  D.  HCBBARD. 


60  REMINISCENCES. 

Governor  Hubbard  died,  after  a  short  but  severe  illness, 
on  the  28th  day  of  February,  1884.  The  General  Assembly  was 
then  in  session,  and  on  the  announcement  of  his  death  elo- 
quent addresses  in  eulogy  of  him  were  made  in  each  house. 
At  a  meeting  of  the  Hartford  bar,  called  on  the  occasion  and 
held  on  the  29th  of  February,  and  quite  fully  attended,  after 
several  addresses  had  been  made  by  other  members  of  the  bar, 
I  arose  and  made  some  extemporaneous  remarks,  saying  that 
after  so  much  had  been  said,  and  well  said,  about  Governor 
Hubbard's  transcendent  abilities,  it  was  hardly  worth  while 
for  me  to  occupy  their  time  with  remarks  upon  that  subject, 
but  that  I  would  speak  of  the  affectionate  side  of  his  nature, 
of  which  the  public  knew  but  little,  and  of  him  as  my  personal 
friend,  telling  them  of  the  overflowing  cordiality  of  his  oc- 
casional letters,  and  of  his  rarely  writing  me  on  professional 
business  without  adding,  by  way  of  postscript,  an  affectionate 
word.  I  then  passed  to  another  subject,  upon  which  I  spent 
most  of  the  time  that  I  occupied,  and  in  which  I  was  listened 
to  with  very  close  attention.  After  the  meeting  was  closed 
one  and  another  of  the  older  members  of  the  bar  came  to 
thank  me  for  wrhat  I  had  said,  and  one  leading  citizen,  not  of 
our  profession  (there  were  many  citizens  present  outside  of 
the  bar),  asked  me  to  give  him  my  speech,  taking  it  for  granted 
that  I  had  it  written.  I  told  him  that  it  was  wholly  extem- 
poraneous and  that  I  had  not  a  line  of  it  in  writing.  He  then 
asked  me  if  I  could  not  write  it  out.  I  told  him  that  I  thought 
I  could  without  difficulty  while  it  was  fresh  in  my  mind.  He 
then  begged  me  to  do  so,  and  to  put  in  every  word  that  I  said 
with  regard  to  Governor  Hubbard's  attitude  toward  religion 
and  the  future  life.  When  I  got  home  I  at  once  wrote  out  my 
remarks,  and  found  no  difficulty  in  following  both  my  line  of 
thought  and  the  language  I  had  used.  My  remarks  (not  in- 
cluding the  introductory  part  of  my  address)  were  as  follows: 

"  I  now  come  to  a  subject  which  I  approach  with  much  hes- 
itation, and  which  I  think  I  should  not  have  ventured  to  touch 
but  for  the  way  having  been  opened  for  me  by  an  allusion 
made  by  our  Brother  Sill  a  few  minutes  ago,  in  the  closing  part 
of  his  address.  He  spoke  of  the  "  halting  faith  "  of  our  friend. 
I  have  long  and  sadly  known  of  Mr.  Hubbard's  want  of  re- 
ligious faith,  and  have  endeavored  to  lift  him  up  into  a  clearer 


RICHARD  D.  HUBBARD.  6l 

perception  of  spiritual  truths.  The  spiritual  part  of  his  na- 
ture he  had  never  cultivated.  He  had  a  reverential  spirit,  but 
it  was  towards  objects  worthy  of  his  admiration  and  reverence 
that  presented  themselves  to  his  sight  or  vividly  to  his  imagina- 
tion. Always  an  anxious  questioner  of  the  infinite,  he  seemed 
to  get  no  response  that  he  could  interpret.  He  was  pre-emi- 
nently a  truth-loving  man;  he  hated  shams  and  pretenses;  and 
if  he  could  speak  to  us  to-day  he  would  say,  "Tell  the  truth 
about  me  if  you  say  anything."  I  am  sure  he  would  wish  me 
to  say  just  what  I  am  saying. 

"  To  him  the  future  life  was  all  uncertainty.  With  all  his 
imagination  he  could  not  see  beyond  the  veil  and  fill  the 
seeming  void  with  realities.  And  so  he  came  to  dread  that 
life.  He  loved  this  life  —  this  green  and  beautiful  earth  —  its 
intellectual  enjoyments,  its  social  delights,  not  a  little  its  mere 
animal  life,  and  did  not  want  to  leave  it  for  another  world  of 
which  he  knew  and  could  conceive  nothing.  He  has  often 
told  me  this.  A  few  summers  ago  he  spent  some  time  at  New- 
port, taking  with  him  his  family  and  his  equipage.  On  his 
return  he  said  to  me :  '  Hooker,  I  have  had  one  of  the  pleas- 
antest  summers  of  my  life,  but  over  it  all  there  hung  a  shadow. 
The  question  kept  coming  into  my  mind,  How  long  will  this 
last?  and  what  then?'  In  commenting  a  few  months  ago 
upon  a  poem  of  mine  which  appeared  in  the  papers,  in  which 
I  had  expressed  a  longing  for  the  other  life,  he  said:  '  How 
can  anybody,  with  this  green  earth  around  him,  be  wanting 
to  go  over  into  the  unknown  world?  '  To  me  that  world  does 
not  seem  like  an  unknown  one.  I  live  in  it,  it  seems  to  me, 
more  than  I  do  in  this.  It  is  as  real  to  me  as  this. 

"  Now  with  that  world  so  near  and  so  real  to  me,  my  mind 
has  been  filled,  ever  since  I  heard  of  Mr.  Hubbard's  death, 
with  the  thought  of  his  experiences  over  there.  I  could  not 
dwell  on  his  eloquence,  or  his  legal  ability,  or  any  of  the  things 
which  his  eulogists  are  so  eloquently  saying  of  him.  I  have 
been  able  to  think  only  of  where  he  is  in  that  spirit  world  that 
was  so  uninviting  to  him.  What  has  he  found  there?  What 
is  his  condition  there?  I  have  wished,  with  inexpressible  de- 
sire, to  be  there  with  him.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  could  hold  his 
hand  and  steady  and  guide  and  comfort  him  there;  that  he 
would  not  seem  so  much  to  be  in  a  strange  place  if  I  were 
there  with  him. 


62  ,       REMINISCENCES. 

"  Well,  I  should  not  have  thought  of  saying  all  this  if  I  had 
not  been  prepared  to  follow  it  up  with  words  of  comfort  and 
hope.  I  was  brought  up  on  a  stern  old  theology  that,  in  con- 
siderable part,  I  utterly  repudiate.  I  believe  profoundly,  it 
seems  to  me  that  I  knoiv  as  if  God  himself  had  revealed  it  to 
me,  that  our  probation  does  not  end  with  this  life.  As  a  pro- 
gressive religious  thinker  has  well  said:  'We  are  placed  in 
this  world  to  be  trained,  not  to  be  tested.'  All  bitter  experi- 
ences in  the  other  world  I  believe  to  be  reformatory.  They 
may  be  of  long  continuance,  but  I  believe  there  will  be  sweet 
fruit  in  the  end.  It  is  a  dreadful  mistake  to  lay  up  a  burden 
of  sin  in  this  world;  its  weight  will  be  terrible  upon  the  soul 
over  there.  But  our  friend  had  a  great  soul  —  reverential, 
truthful,  just,  generous,  affectionate  —  and  such  a  soul  will 
soon  find  something  in  that  spiritual  world  to  which  it  will 
be  drawn  and  which  it  will  draw  to  itself.  His  progress  may 
be  slow,  but  it  will  be  constantly  an  ascent.  He  had  the  most 
important  elements  of  a  great  character,  and  character  there 
becomes  everything.  I  do  not  believe  in  any  doctrine  of  im- 
puted righteousness.  The  soul  must  work  its  slow  way  up  into 
a  high  spiritual  character  of  its  own.  And  that  such  a  soul  as 
his  will  do  this  I  feel  sure.  So  I  think  of  our  friend  with  sad- 
ness, but  with  a  calm  trust  and  an  expectation  only  of  good, 
and  if  I  shall  tarry  much  longer  upon  the  earth  I  shall  expect 
to  be  welcomed  over  there  by  a  bright  spirit,  which,  if  I  do 
not  recognize  it  in  its  new  form,  will  say  to  me :  "  Why,  I  am 
your  old  friend,  Dick  Hubbard." 

Governor  Hubbard  was  buried  on  Monday,  the  2d  day  of 
March.  On  the  Sunday  preceding  I  wrote  and  sent  to  the 
Courant  of  Monday  morning,  where  they  appeared,  the  fol- 
lowing verses,  with  which  I  close  these  reminiscences  of  my 

friend : 

To  R.  D.  H.  —  MARCH  i,  1884. 

Silent  thou  liest  in  death's  solemn  calm, 

Shaming  the  tumult  in  our  breasts  ; 
For  'tis  the  shadow  of  the  lofty  palm, 
Not  cypress,  on  thee  rests. 

From  earthly  pain  set  free  and  earth's  defilence, 

Thou  liest  with  thy  dear  hands  folden  ; 
Thy  speech  in  life  was  silver,  but  thy  silence 
To-day  is  more  than  golden. 


MR.   HUB  BARD'S  OBITUARY  ADDRESSES.  63 

The  halls  which  have  so  oft  thy  triumphs  seen , 

Mourn  their  great  victor  passed  away  ; 
Yet  in  triumphant  life  thou  ne'er  hast  been 
Such  victor  as  to-day. 

Oh,  questioner  !  who  found  in  earth's  dim  ways 

No  answer  to  thy  mind's  deep  quest  ; 
Art  thou  not  lighted  now  by  the  clear  rays 
That  shine  upon  the  blest  ? 

Hast  thou  not  found  th'  immortal  stream  that  flows 

To  heal  the  earth-stained  souls  of  men  ? 
And  Him,  who  for  us  went  to  death,  and  rose, 
And  loves  all  souls  as  then  ? 

MR.  HUBBARD'S  OBITUARY  ADDRESSES. 

Mr.  Hubbard's  addresses  at  the  bar  meetings  called  upon 
the  occasion  of  the  deaths  of  members  of  the  bar  were  often 
exceedingly  finished  and  elegant.  He  never  offered  any  per- 
functory eulogy,  and,  indeed,  rarely  spoke  on  those  occasions 
unless  the  decedent  had  passed  a  long  and  honored  professional 
life  among  us,  or  had  qualities  which  commanded  his  admira- 
tion and  affection.  At  such  times  his  remarks  were  of  surpass- 
ing interest  and  his  language  gave  one  a  new  conception  of 
the  richness  of  our  English  tongue.  Yet  he  never  seemed  to 
attempt  to  be  an  orator.  He  spoke  in  a  low  voice,  without 
gestures,  and  with  the  utmost  simplicity  of  manner.  One  who 
has  listened  to  him  at  such  times  can  appreciate  what  I  lost  in 
outliving  him,  and  thus  never  getting  that  loving  notice  of  me 
which  he  promised  in  one  of  the  letters  that  I  have  given  in 
my  sketch  of  him,  in  case  he  should  "  out-tarry  "  me.  His  fine 
addresses  are  wholly  out  of  sight  of  all  but  the  lawyers,  buried 
in  the  appendices  of  the  Connecticut  Law  Reports.  If  any 
choose  to  look  them  up,  and  they  will  well  repay  the  search, 
the  most  noteworthy  among  them  are  those  of  Charles  Chap- 
man in  vol.  35;  of  William  Hungerford,  in  vol.  39;  of  Chief 
Justice  Seymour,  in  vol.  48;  and  of  Loren  P.  Waldo,  in  the 
same  volume.  The  concluding  part  of  his  address  upon  Mr. 
Hungerford  is  one  of  such  rare  beauty  and  interest  that  I  give 
it  at  some  length.  Mr.  Hungerford  died  in  1873,  at  the  age 
of  86.  He  was  more  like  the  traditional  English  lawyer  than 
any  other  lawyer  whom  our  state  had  known.  He  never  mar- 
ried. He  never  mingled  in  politics  or  went  into  society,  and 


64  REMINISCENCES. 

he  never  held  or  sought  office.  He  was  wedded  to  the  common 
law  and  familiar  with  all  its  abstrusities.  As  Mr.  Hubbard 
said  of  him  in  an  earlier  part  of  his  address,  "  His  weapons 
were  a  full  equipment  from  the  strange,  heavy  old  armor  of 
Littleton  and  the  Year  Books  down  to  the  most  cunning  and 
newly-contrived  fences  and  foils  of  forensic  warfare."  He  had 
not  the  slightest  oratorical  power,  nor  even  a  pleasing  voice, 
yet  few  lawyers  were  listened  to  so  attentively  by  the  judges 
or  made  an  equal  impression  upon  them.  He  sat  all  day  and 
all  the  evenings  in  his  office.  Among  his  much-read  books 
no  one  was  so  well  worn  as  his  Bible.  Mr.  Hubbard,  in  his 
address,  had  been  presenting  in  much  detail  the  admirable 
points  of  his  professional  and  private  character,  and  had 
expressed  his  belief  that  he  was  "  the  most  learned  lawyer 
at  the  bar  of  this  state."  He  then  proceeded  as  follows: — 

And  now  when  I  consider  this  long  life  closed  —  these  many  years 
ended  of  eminent  labor  in  the  highest  ranks  of  the  forum  —  and  nothing 
left  of  it  all  but  a  tolling  bell,  a  handful  of  earth,  and  a  passing  tradi- 
tion—  a  tradition  already  half  past — I  am  reminded  of  the  infelicity 
which  attends  the  reputation  of  a  great  lawyer.  To  my  thinking,  the 
most  vigorous  brain  work  of  the  world  is  done  in  the  ranks  of  our  pro- 
fession. And  then  our  work  concerns  the  highest  of  all  temporal  in- 
terests, property,  reputation,  the  peace  of  families,  liberty,  life  even,  the 
foundations  of  society,  the  jurisprudence  of  the  world,  and,  as  a  recent 
event  has  shown,  the  arbitrations  and  peace  of  nations.  The  world 
accepts  the  work,  but  forgets  the  workers.  The  waste  hours  of  Lord 
Bacon  and  Sergeant  Talfourd  were  devoted  to  letters,  and  each  is  infi- 
nitely better  remembered  for  his  mere  literary  diversions  than  for  his 
whole  long  and  laborious  professional  life-work.  The  cheap  caricatures 
of  Dickens  on  the  profession  will  outlive,  I  fear,  in  the  popular  memory, 
the  judgments  of  Chief  Justice  Marshall,  for  the  latter  were  not  clownish 
burlesques,  but  only  masterpieces  of  reason  and  jurisprudence.  The  vic- 
tory gained  by  the  counsel  of  the  seven  bishops  was  worth  infinitely 
more  to  the  people  of  England  than  all  the  triumphs  of  the  Crimean  war. 
But  one  Lord  Cardigan  led  a  foolishly  brilliant  charge  against  a  Russian 
battery  at  Balaklava,  and  became  immortal.  Who  led  the  great  charge 
of  the  seven  great  confessors  of  the  English  church  against  the  English 
crown  at  Westminster  'Hall?  You  must  go  to  your  books  to  answer. 
They  were  not  on  horseback.  They  wore  gowns  instead  of  epaulettes. 
The  truth  is,  we  are  like  the  little  insects  that  in  the  unseen  depths  of 
the  ocean  lay  the  coral  foundations  of  uprising  islands.  In  the  end  come 


SAMUEL  BOWLES.  65 

the  solid  land,  the  olive  and  the  vine,  the  habitations  of  man,  the  arts 
and  industries  of  life,  the  havens  of  the  sea  and  ships  riding  at  anchor. 
But  the  busy  toilers  which  laid  the  beams  of  a  continent  in  a  dreary 
waste,  are  entombed  in  their  work  and  forgotten  in  their  tombs. 

Yet  the  infelicity  to  which  I  have  alluded  is  not  without  its  compensa- 
tions. For  what,  after  all,  is  posthumous  fame  to  him  who  brought 
nothing  into  this  world  and  may  carry  nothing  out?  The  dead  leave 
behind  their  reputations  alike  with  their  estates.  A  man  may  be  libeled 
to-day  as  a  fool,  a  fanatic,  and  a  knave,  and  to-morrow  his  libelers  sneak 
into  his  funeral  procession,  and  the  chief  magistrate  of  forty  millions  of 
freemen  begs  the  honor  of  two  feet  of  space  at  his  obsequies.  It  is  the 
old  story —  the  tax  which  posthumous  fame  so  often  pays  for  its  title  — 
a  garret  and  a  crust  in  life,  a  mausoleum  and  statue  afterwards.  What 
avails  it  all  ?  We  may  justly  console  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that 
we  belong  to  a  profession  which  above  all  others  shapes  and  fashions  the 
institutions  in  which  we  live,  and  which,  in  the  language  of  a  great 
statesman,  "  is  as  ancient  as  the  magistracy,  as  noble  as  virtue,  as  neces- 
sary as  justice,"  —  a  profession,  I  venture  to  add,  which  is  generous  and 
fraternal  above  all  others,  and  in  which  living  merit  is  appreciated  in  its 
day,  according  to  its  deserts,  and  by  none  so  quickly  and  so  ungrudg- 
ingly as  by  those  who  are  its  professional  contemporaries  and  its  com- 
petitors in  the  same  field.  We  have  our  rivalries  —  who  else  has  more  ? 

—  but  they  seldom  produce  jealousies.     We  have  our  contentions  —  who 
else  has  so  many?  —  but  they  seldom  produce  enmities.     The  old  Saxons 
used  to  cover  their  fires  on  every  hearth  at  the  sound  of  the  evening 
curfew.     In  like  manner,  but  to  a  better  purpose,  we  also  cover  at  each 
nightfall  the  embers  of  each  day's  struggle  and  strife.     We  never  defer 
our  amnesties  till  after  death,  and  have  less  occasion,  therefore,  than  some 
others  to  deal  in  post  mortem  bronzes  and  marbles.     So  much  we  may 
say  without  arrogance  of  ourselves  —  so  much  of  our  noble  profession. 

No  better  proof  and  illustration  can  be  found  than  in  the  life  just 
closed  —  a  life  clear  and  clean  in  its  aims  —  full  of  busy  and  useful  labors 

—  void,  I  dare  believe,  of  offense  toward  God  and  man,  and  crowned  in 
its  course  with  that  three-fold  scriptural  blessing  —  length  of  days,  and 
riches,  and  honor. 

SAMUEL  BOWLES. 

Mr.  Bowles,  as  editor  of  the  Springfield  Republican  and  as 
a  great  journalist,  was  too  well  known  in  his  lifetime,  and  is 
too  well  remembered,  to  need  any  notice  from  me.  It  is  only  as 
a  warm-hearted  personal  friend  that  I  wish  to  speak  of  him. 
He  was  a  good  hater,  but  was  one  of  the  truest  and  best  of 
friends,  and  it  was  my  felicity  and  that  of  my  wife  to  know  this 
gracious  side  of  his  nature.  We  had,  one  or  the  other  of  us, 


66  REMINISCENCES. 

sometimes  both  together,  letters  from  him,  written  often  only 
to  convey  his  good  will,  but  sometimes  to  tell  us,  in  an  ex- 
asperated way,  what  he  thought  of  some  public  men  and  meas- 
ures —  these  letters,  however,  often  freighted  with  a  large  con- 
tingent of  kindly  feeling  for  us.  Almost  all  were  written  at  a 
moment  of  release  from  overburdening  editorial  care  and  work, 
or  when,  overburdened  with  such  work,  his  mind  sought  relief 
in  friendly  correspondence  or  companionship.  I  shall  omit 
all  that  do  not  bear  directly  on  these  personal  relations.  Those 
which  I  publish  were,  with  one  exception,  written  within  the 
last  four  years  of  his  life.  The  earlier  ones,  so  far  as  they  have 
been  preserved,  deal  more  with  political  and  reformatory  mat- 
ters in  which  he  was  in  hearty  sympathy  with  us.  I  give  one  of 
these  earlier  letters,  addressed  to  Mrs.  Hooker.  The  Governor 
Brown  to  whom  he  refers  is  Governor  B.  Gratz  Brown  of  Mis- 
souri, to  whom  she  had  written  an  earnest  letter  on  woman 
suffrage,  which  he  had  strongly  advocated. 

SPRINGFIELD,  April  19,  1872. 
My  Dear  Mrs.  Hooker: 

I  thank  -you.  for  sending  me  your  note  to  Gov.  Brown.  I  have  taken 
a  copy  of  it,  and,  unless  you  forbid  me  before,  I  shall  publish  it  in  the 
Republican  next  week.  It  is  a  good  item  in  the  general  agitation,  of 
which  there  has  got  to  be  a  good  deal  more  than  you  imagine  before  the 
end  is  achieved.  You  will  get  nothing  from  any  party  this  year.  Such  a 
revolution  as  we  propose  is  not  won  in  a  day  or  a  year.  It  is  a  long  road 
and  through  much  prayer  and  labor.  But  your  hope  and  courage  are 
splendid,  and  I  watch  their  demonstrations  with  much  interest. 

I  am  yours  very  cordially,  SAM'L  BOWLES. 

In  the  fall  of  1874  I  spent  a  Sunday  with  him.  My  wife  was 
spending  the  winter  in  Paris,  and  I  felt  a  great  desire  for  a 
few  hours  of  his  companionship.  We  spent  the  whole  day  at 
his  house  together,  intermingling  rest  and  conversation.  I 
arranged  to  go  back  Monday  morning  by  a  very  early  train, 
getting  my  breakfast  after  I  got  home.  On  going  to  my  room 
I  found  some  refreshments  for  the  early  morning  on  a  stand 
by  the  head  of  my  bed,  with  this  note:  "  Dear  J.  H. — Break 
the  egg  into  the  tumbler,  stir,  and  drink  it.  Come  again,  and 
we  won't  talk  of  anything  serious.  I  am  ashamed  to  have 
spoken  of  my  light  troubles.  S.  B." 


SAMUEL  BOWLES.  67 

Early  in  1875  Mf-  Bowles  had  on  his  hands  a  very  serious 
libel  suit,  brought  by  one  Phelps,  upon  whose  transactions  he 
had  commented  very  severely  in  his  paper.  He  felt  the  burden 
of  the  suit  greatly.  At  this  time  he  wrote  me  this  letter: 

SPRINGFIELD,  April  22,  1875. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Hooker: 

Come  up  Saturday  and  spend  this  Sunday  with  me.  I  am  very 
much  absorbed  in  my  great  libel  suit.  But  I  want  you  now  for  two 
reasons  —  first,  as  a  distraction  and  comfort,  and  second,  to  see  if  I  can't 
squeeze  a  little  help  out  of  you.  I  want  all  the  legal  knowledge  of  my 
learned  friends,  and  all  their  aid  and  comfort.  It  is  a  good  suit  and  we 
have  a  good  case.  My  chief  anxiety  now  is  to  make  the  court  let  in  our 
evidence.  Anyway,  come  up. 

Yours  very  cordially,  SAM'L  BOWLES. 

The  suit  came  to  trial  soon  after,  and  resulted  in  a  victory 
for  Mr.  Bowles.  I  had  left  for  Europe  in  May,  joining  my 
wife  in  Paris,  where  she  had  spent  the  winter.  While  there, 
seeing  in  the  Weekly  Republican,  which  I  had  sent  to  me  while 
abroad,  that  he  had  gained  his  suit,  I  wrote  him  a  letter  of 
congratulation.  I  had  written  him,  before  leaving  home,  of  my 
intention  to  go  abroad  for  the  summer.  In  my  letter  from 
Paris  I  had  commended  his  pluck  in  fighting  the  libel  suit,  and 
told  him  of  my  lack  of  the  fighting  spirit  and  my  disposition  to 
run  away  like  a  coward  rather  than  stay  and  fight.  He  replied 
as  follows : 

SPRINGFIELD,  June  18,  1875. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Hooker: 

I  am  indebted  to  you  for  two  very  kind  and  sympathetic  notes. 
They  did  good  in  the  full  measure  of  their  intent.  It  was  a  great  victory 
in  the  libel  suit  —  a  greater  one  every  way  even  than  appears  on  the 
surface.  We  should  have  had  the  letter  of  the  law  as  well  as  the  spirit, 
but  the  spirit  was  so  sweeping  that  it  killed  the  letter,  and  set  up  the 
Republican  before  our  local  public  as  no  other  incident  in  its  history 
ever  did. 

I  am  ashamed  not  to  have  seen  you  before  you  went.  I  did  not 
realize  that  your  time  had  come,  and  the  preparation  for  the  suit  which 
was  very  much  in  my  own  hands,  absorbed  all  my  spare  time  and  thought 
during  the  spring. 

I  am  struggling,  as  usual,  with  an  adverse  head.  "  You  know  how 
it  is  yourself."  But  I  peg  away  after  my  incoherent  fashion,  and  don't 
seem  to  have  the  slightest  "encouragement  of  death." 


68  REMINISCENCES. 

I  am  glad  both  you  and  your  wife  are  over  there.  It  is  the  best  place 
for  me  also.  But  I  cannot  well  get  away  this  summer,  though  there  is  a 
chance  that  I  may  repeat  last  year's  run.  By  the  way,  is  your  wife  to 
remain  abroad  next  winter,  and  if  so,  where  ?  Tell  me  that  when  you 
speak  next. 

I  hope  Switzerland  will  restore  your  self  respect.  I  never  knew  a 
man  who  pretended  to  be  such  a  coward,  however,  that  could  fight  so  like 
the  devil  when  the  hour  came.  I  would  bet  odds  on  you  against  the 
whole  Beecher  family  now. 

Mrs.  Bowles  joins  me  in  heartiest  remembrances  to  both  Mrs.  Hooker 
and  yourself.  If  you  come  across  any  of  our  children  or  grandchildren 
in  Europe,  embrace  them  for  us.  Anyway,  believe  me  always 

Very  cordially  yours,  SAM'L  BOWLES. 

My  wife  and  I  returned  from  Europe  in  the  fall  of  1875. 
The  next  letter  from  him  that  I  find  is  as  follows: 

SPRINGFIELD,  Dec.  21,  1875. 
My  Dear  Hooker  : 

*  *  *  I  wish  you  and  Mrs.  Hooker  would  come  up  to  see  us, 
together  or  one  at  a  time.  You  are  pretty  absorbing  people,  and  if  you 
come  together  I  might  have  to  set  you  to  quarrelling  with  each  other  by 
way  of  relief  to  myself.  Tell  madame  I  think  "  the  cause  "  is  growing, 
but  I  don't  believe  we  shall  elect  a  woman  president  next  time.  Moody 
and  Sankey  don't  seem  to  have  helped  Brooklyn  very  much. 

Yours  very  cordially,  SAM'L  BOWLES. 

On  the  /th  of  January,  1876,  I  received  the  following  tele- 
gram from  him: 

You  and  Mrs.  Hooker  come  up  to-morrow  and  make  us  happy. 

SAM'L  BOWLES. 

On  the  3  ist  day  of  July,  1876,  1  received  the  following  note 
from  him,  in  reply  to  an  urgent  invitation  that  I  sent  him  to 
come  down  and  see  us: 

SPRINGFIELD,  July  31,  1876. 
My  Dear  Hooker : 

I  could  neither  go  to  you  nor  answer  promptly,  being  at  Boston  try- 
ing to  make  a  president  for  Amherst  College.  My  family  are  scattered 
about  the  country  in  various  places,  and  between  running  these  various 
detachments  and  a  daily  newspaper,  and  keeping  myself  in  tolerable 
harmony,  I  find  very  little  spare  time  on  my  hands.  Nevertheless,  I  am 
very  glad  you  want  to  see  me.  I  certainly  want  to  see  you,  and  I  will, 
somehow  and  somewhere,  before  the  year  gets  on  to  ripeness. 


SAMUEL   BOWLES. 


69 


I  hope  you  are  making  up  your  mind  to  Tilden's  election.  It  looks 
to  me  almost  as  certain  as  the  fall  frosts. 

With  much  regard  to  Mrs.  Hooker,  I  am  yours  very  heartily, 

SAM'L  BOWLES. 

The  next  letter  I  find  is  the  following: 

SPRINGFIELD,  March  26,  1877. 
My  Dear  John  Hooker: 

Won't  you  send  me  a  copy  of  the  law  which  you  and  Gov.  Hubbard 
have  got  through  the  legislature  on  the  rights  of  married  women  ?  What 
I  see  of  it  indicates  a  real  and  healthy  advance,  the  greatest  triumph  of 
the  new  dispensation  that  has  yet  been  achieved. 

Yours  very  cordially,  SAM'L  BOWLES. 

My  wife  sent  Mr.  Bowles  a  copy  of  the  law,  and  an  inter- 
esting letter  from  him  in  reply  and  one  from  Governor  Hub- 
bard  to  my  wTife  on  the  subject,  are  given  in  the  chapter  on 
Governor  Hubbard,  ante  pages  57,  58. 

A  little  later  Mr.  Bowles  wrote  me  as  follows  in  reply  to  an 
urgent  invitation  that  he  make  us  a  visit: 

SPRINGFIELD,  Aug.  16,  1877. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Hooker : 

It  is  hard  to  resist  such  an  invitation,  but  it  is  impossible  now  to 
accept.  Mrs.  Bowles  worried  herself  because  of  a  sick  grandbaby  into 
her  own  bed,  and  hasn't  left  her  room  for  three  weeks,  and  I  have  be- 
come so  miserably  dyspeptic  this  summer  that  I  cannot  trust  myself  to 
another  table  and  another  bed.  But  if  Saturday  is  a  tolerable  day  and  I 
am  in  a  half-tolerable  condition,  I  shall  go  down  on  the  12  o'clock  train 
and  spend  the  afternoon  with  you.  I  do  want  to  see  you  and  get  new 
comfort  by  fresh  contact  with  good  people. 

I  am  yours  very  cordially,  -       SAM'L  BOWLES. 

Mr.  Bowles  came  down  and  spent  the  afternoon  \vith  us. 
I  find  no  later  note  from  him.  A  few  weeks  later  he  had  a 
paralytic  stroke  and  lived  on,  at  times  more  comfortable,  but 
in  constant  restlessness  and  discomfort,  and  often  great  pain, 
until  January  7,  1878,  when  he  died.  He  had  given  my  name 
to  his  family  among  those  of  friends  whom  he  wished  specially 
invited  to  his  funeral.  A  very  interesting  memorial  service 
was  afterwards  held,  to  which  my  wife  and  I  were  invited,  and 
which  was  largely  attended  by  his  friends. 


70  REMINISCENCES. 

A  strong,  earnest  soul,  that  had  had  an  intense  hold  on  life 
and  on  public  interests,  and  was  ready  for  any  contest  that  the 
assertion  of  the  right  made  necessary,  but  with  a  constant, 
and  sometimes  pathetic,  outreach  for  sympathy  and  com- 
panionship, passed  to  the  greater  life  when  he  departed. 

SIR  SAMUEL  ROMILLY. 

Soon  after  I  came  to  the  bar  (which  was  in  1841)  I  read  with 
great  interest  in  one  of  our  American  magazines  a  review  of 
the  life  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  an  eminent  English  chancery 
lawyer.  The  memoir  was  in  two  volumes,  edited  by  two  of 
his'  sons;  one  of  whom,  Sir  John  Romilly,  was  afterwards 
Master  of  the  Rolls.  Sir  Samuel  was  born  in  1757,  and  died  in 
1818.  Not  being  able  to  find  the  work  in  this  country  I  sent 
to  London  for  it,  and  after  procuring  it  read  and  re-read  it 
with  great  interest. 

Sir  Samuel  was  of  Huguenot  descent,  of  a  family  that  fled 
from  France  to  England  at  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  in  1685.  His  later  ancestors  were  jewelers,  who  ac- 
quired considerable  property,  and  he  received  a  good  educa- 
tion, though  not  a  university  one.  He  entered  Gray's  Inn  as 
a  student  for  the  bar  when  twenty-one  years  old,  and  after  ad- 
mission to  the  London  bar  pursued  his  profession  with  great 
success,  attaining  the  foremost  rank  at  the  chancery  bar,  his 
professional  gains  at  the  height  of  his  practice  being  said  to 
have  averaged  £14,000  a  year.  He  was  a  man  of  the  highest 
professional  and  personal  honor.  In  the  course  of  his  advance- 
ment he  had  reached  the  point  where,  at  the  next  vacancy,  he 
was  regarded,  and  regarded  himself,  as  entitled  to  the  position 
of  Lord  High  Chancellor.  The  memoir  is  made  up  largely  of 
extracts  from  his  journal,  and  it  appears  from  frequent  entries 
upon  it  that  he  was  looking  forward  with  an  honorable  ambi- 
tion and  pride  to  the  Lord  Chancellorship.  As  is  generally 
known,  the  Chancellor  presides  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  has 
an  important  influence  on  legislation.  When,  at  last,  the  ex- 
pected vacancy  came,  the  king,  George  IV,  sent  for  Sir  Samuel, 
and  told  him  that  he  was  prepared  to  put  the  great  seal  into  his 
hands,  but  that  if  he  did  so  he  should  expect  him  to  do  what 
he  could  to  secure  the  passage  of  an  act  that  was  pending  be- 
fore the  Lords,  and  which  he  desired  to  have  passed.  It  was 


SIR  SAMUEL  ROM  ILLY.  71 

some  act  extending  or  strengthening  the  king's  prerogative, 
and  was  not  approved  by  Sir  Samuel.  He  said  to  the  king:  "  I 
know,  your  Majesty,  what  the  act  is.  I  have  already  considered 
it,  and  I  cannot  support  it."  The  king  replied  that  he  could 
not  have  the  great  seal  except  on  the  condition  of  his  support- 
ing it.  "  Then  (said  he),  your  Majesty,  I  decline  it."  And 
thus  he  let  the  great  office  pass  to  other  hands  —  understand- 
ing clearly  that  his  loss  of  it  now  was  a  final  sacrifice  of  it. 
And  he  never  had  another  offer  of  it. 

He  was  in  Parliament  for  several  years  before  his  death 
(1818),  and  \vhile  there  introduced,  and  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent worked  through,  the  series  of  enactments  known  to  this 
day  as  "  The  Romilly  Acts,"  the  object  of  which  was  to  miti- 
gate the  severity  of  the  criminal  law  of  England.  When  he 
began  the  church  and  all  society  were  against  him.  It  was  the 
nearly  universal  belief  that  the  letting  up  on  the  punishment  of 
crime  would  only  increase  crime.  A  few  thinking  men  were 
with  him,  but  he  was  substantially  alone  in  his  undertaking. 
He  began  with  introducing  a  single  measure,  which  was  voted 
down  overwhelmingly.  At  the  next  session  he  introduced  the 
same  bill  again,  and  another  for  another  amendment  of  the 
law.  The  latter  would  be  voted  down  by  an  overwhelming 
majority,  and  the  former  by  a  reduced  majority.  After  a 
while  they  began  to  fall  in,  and  then  at  every  session  one  meas- 
ure and  another  would  be  carried  through.  At  his  death  a  con- 
sirable  part  of  the  legislation  that  he  sought  had  not  yet 
reached  success,  but  it  was  all  so  well  on  its  way  that  the  whole 
was  soon  after  carried  through. 

I  regarded  Sir  Samuel  with  so  great  admiration,  and  in- 
deed reverence,  that  I  determined  if  I  ever  went  to  England  to 
look  up  his  sons,  and  especially  Sir  John,  then  a  chancery 
judge,  and  to  visit  his  rooms  in  Gray's  Inn  and  his  professional 
haunts.  No  Englishman  has  gone  into  my  life  as  he  has,  un- 
less I  place  by  his  side  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold,  of  whose  memory 
I  am  equally  a  worshiper. 

In  1857  the  British  government  had  some  important  litiga- 
tion in  the  Superior  Court  at  Hartford.  It  grew  out  of  a  large 
contract  with  Robbins  &  Lawrence,  of  Hartford,  for  the  manu- 
facture of  breech-loading  rifles  for  the  English  army.  The 
case  was  heard  at  very  great  length  before  a  committee,  and 


72  REMINISCENCES. 

in  one  form  and  another  went  five  times  to  our  Supreme  Court. 
A  Mr.  Whittaker,  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  a  practitioner  at  the 
New  York  bar,  was  general  counsel  for  the  British  govern- 
ment, while  I  was  retained  as  local  counsel.  As  the  case  grew 
more  serious  and  difficult,  Thomas  C.  Perkins,  Esq.,  was  em- 
ployed with  me,  and  later,  Franklin  Chamberlin,  Esq.  Mr. 
Whittaker  was  an  English  lawyer  who  came  to  New  York  to 
practice  his  profession.  During  the  pendency  of  this  litiga- 
tion, which  lasted  several  years,  I  spent  a  summer  in  Europe. 
On  my  informing  Mr.  Whittaker  at  one  time  when-  he  was  in 
Hartford  of  my  intention  to  do  so,  he  said  that  he  could  give 
me  a  letter  of  introduction  to  friends  in  London,  and  that  when 
he  got  home  he  would  write  some  for  me.  Not  long  after  a 
package  of  letters  came,  and  with  them  one  to  myself,  in  which 
he  said  that  he  had  sent  me,  among  others,  a  letter  to  his 
cousin,  Sir  John  Romilly.  The  letter  to  Sir  John  I  then  read, 
and  found  it  addressed  him  as  "  Cousin  John."  In  it  he  spoke 
very  kindly  of  me  as  a  lawyer  of  Hartford,  and  as  having  been 
retained  by  the  British  government  in  an  important  case  in 
the  courts  there.  I  can  hardly  express  my  surprise  and  pleas- 
ure at  having  the  way  thus  opened  for  me  to  the  Romilly  fam- 
ily. Mr.  Whittaker  explained  to  me  his  relation  to  Sir  Samuel 
when  I  next  saw  him.  His  mother  was  sister  of  the  wife  of 
Sir  Samuel,  and  he  himself  had  spent  months  in  his  family,  and 
he  and  Sir  John  had  been  playmates  in  childhood,  and  later, 
schoolmates. 

Of  course  I  set  out,  soon  after  reaching  London,  to  avail 
myself  of  Mr.  Whittaker's  letter  to  Sir  John.  It  was  now  in 
the  early  summer.  The  court  over  which  Sir  John  presided 
was  known  as  the  Rolls  Court,  as  his  title  was  "  Master  of  the 
Rolls."  It  was  a  chancery  court  of  the  higher  order.  I  went 
to  the  court  room  a  half  hour  before  the  time  of  opening  court, 
and  found  his  secretary  in  the  parlor  attached  to  the  court 
room,  to  whom  I  made  known  the  object  of  my  call.  He  said  the 
judge  would  not  come  in  till  a  few  minutes  before  the  time  for 
opening  the  court,  and  advised  me  to  come  in  in  the  afternoon, 
just  before  the  adjournment,  after  which  the  judge  would  be  at 
leisure.  I  did  so,  and  sat  a  half  hour  looking  on  with  great 
interest  as  he  dispensed  justice.  When  the  hour  of  adjourn- 
ment was  reached  the  court  was  formally  adjourned  till  the 


DR.    THOMAS  ARNOLD.  73 

next  morning,  and  the  judge  disappeared  through  a  private 
door  near  the  bench,  that  led  into  the  parlor.  Another  door 
opened  into  the  same  room  from  the  public  part  of  the  court 
room,  and,  after  waiting  for  a  few  minutes,  I  went  to  it  and 
rang  the  bell.  His  secretary  appeared  and  asked  me  to  walk 
in  and  take  a  seat.  I  handed  him  the  letter  for  the  judge,  which 
he  carried  to  him  in  an  inner  parlor,  which  seemed  to  be  his 
private  room.  Very  soon  he  came  back  and  said  the  judge 
wished  me  to  come  right  in.  I  did  so,  and  he  received  me  most 
cordially.  He  was  glad  to  hear  from  me  about  his  cousin 
"\Yhittaker,  and  I  told  him  of  my  great  admiration  and  rever- 
ence for  his  father.  1  his  greatly  interested  him,  and  we  spent 
a  half  hour  in  talking  about  Sir  Samuel.  In  this  conversation 
he  told  me  some  of  the  facts  which  I  have  before  stated,  and 
particularly  about  his  labors  in  Parliament  for  the  improvement 
of  the  criminal  law.  With  regard  to  these  he  mentioned  this 
occurrence:  Sir  Samuel,  after  years  of  labor  in  the  cause, 
had  reckoned  confidently  on  carrying  through  a  certain  very 
important  measure,  the  passage  of  which  was  the  more  im- 
portant as  he  was  expecting  to  leave  Parliament.  When  the 
vote  was  taken  it  was  defeated.  He  felt  it  keenly,  and  in  a 
short  speech  upon  some  motion  which  he  made  in  the  matter, 
told  the  house  how  disappointed  and  depressed  he  felt.  "  But 
(said  he),  my  labor  has  not  been  lost,  for  the  effort  that  T  have 
made  and  which  has  failed,  will  inspire  some  other  man  to  make 
an  effort  that  will  succeed."  This  utterance  has  vibrated  in  my 
soul  through  nearly  forty  years,  a  perpetual  inspiration.  I 
shall  be  well  paid  for  the  trouble  I  have  taken  in  writing  out 
this  story  if  I  can  pass  on  its  inspiration  to  others. 

DR.  THOMAS  ARNOLD. 

In  my  early  manhood  I  read  the  life  of  Dr.  Arnold  by  Canon 
Stanley.  It  was  made  up  largely  of  his  letters.  The  volume 
was  large  and,  with  the  little  time  I  had  for  such  reading,  I  had 
it  on  hand  for  nearly  two  months.  As  I  neared  the  end  of  it  I 
remember  thinking  how  I  should  have  liked  to  have  it  run  on 
indefinitely,  keeping  me  for  years  in  the  companionship  of  the 
noble  man,  and  permitting  me  to  drink  constant  drafts  of 
inspiration  from  his  life  and  thoughts.  Xo  two  Englishmen 
have  gone  into  my  life  as  Dr.  Arnold  and  Sir  Samuel  Romilly 
have  done.  Of  the  latter  I  have  just  spoken. 
6 


74  REMINISCENCES. 

In  the  summer  of  1872  I  was  in  England  with  my  daughter, 
Mrs.  Burton,  her  cousin,  Miss  Kate  Foote,  Rev.  Dr.  N.  J.  Bur- 
ton, and  Senator  Joseph  R.  Hawley.  We  were  at  one  time  all 
together  at  Bowness,  on  Lake  Windermere,  and  arranged  for  a 
drive  through  the  lake  district  to  Keswick,  about  twenty  miles. 
As  we  passed  through  Ambleside  we  learned,  by  inquiry  of 
our  driver,  that  by  going  a  little  out  of  our  way  we  could  pass 
by  Fox  Howe,  the  favorite  residence  of  Dr.  Arnold.  His 
widow,  the  driver  told  us,  was  living  there,  with  an  unmarried 
daughter.  We  soon  reined  up  before  the  gate,  from  which  a 
carriage  drive  led  to  a  tasteful  stone  mansion,  which  stood 
among  wooded  and  picturesque  grounds.  After  sentimental- 
izing a  few  minutes  over  the  scene  I  asked  them  if  any  of  them 
would  go  in  with  me.  They  all  declined  and  thought  it  would 
hardly  do  for  me.  But  I  told  them  I  was  going  to  call,  even 
if  I  had  to  do  so  alone.  They  agreed  to  wait  for  me,  and  I 
went  in  at  the  gate,  and  was  soon  at  the  door.  Upon  my  ring- 
ing the  bell  a  servant  came  to  the  door,  who  told  me  that  Mrs. 
Arnold  was  in,  but  was  at  breakfast.  It  was  now  about  9 
o'clock.  I  took  out  my  card  and  wrote  on  the  back  of  it,  "  Will 
Mrs.  Arnold  see  for  a  moment  an  American  gentleman  who 
worships  the  memory  of  Dr.  Arnold?"  I  was  shown  into  a 
parlor,  and  in  a  moment  Miss  Arnold,  a  lady  of  about  fifty, 
came  in,  reaching  out  her  hand  most  cordially  to  me,  and  say- 
ing that  her  mother  was  greatly  pleased  with  my  call,  and  would 
be  in  in  a  moment.  And  very  soon  the  old  lady  came  in,  reach- 
ing out  both  her  hands,  and  with  the  tears  rolling  down  her 
cheeks.  I  have  to  confess  that  my  cheeks  were  wet  all  through 
our  brief  interview.  She  seemed  delighted  at  my  visit,  and 
hardly  willing  to  let  me  go.  She  showed  me  a  portrait  of  Dr. 
Arnold,  the  best,  she  said,  that  was  ever  painted  of  him,  and 
gave  me  a  photograph  of  it;  also  the  desk  at  which  he  wrote 
and  the  chair  in  which  he  used  to  sit  at  it.  I  had  to  hasten  my 
departure,  as  my  party  would  get  impatient,  but  I  had  in  the 
brief  quarter  of  an  hour  that  I  spent  there  one  of  the  most  ten- 
der and  inspiring  experiences  of  my  life. 

I  told  my  friends,  when  I  got  back  to  the  carriage,  what 
a  delightful  time  I  had  had,  and  what  they  had  lost,  but  I  am 
strongly  of  the  impression  that  if  we  had  trooped  in  as  a  com- 
pany of  tourist  sight-seers  it  would  have  vulgarized  and  utterly 
spoiled  the  whole  affair. 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS.  75 

WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS. 

Mr.  Evarts  was  a  classmate  of  mine  at  Yale,  in  the  class  of 
1837.  We  were  second  cousins,  and  in  vacations  he  was  occa- 
sionally at  my  father's  house  in  Farmington.  He  and  Colton  of 
our  class  made,  with  me,  a  trio  who  were  specially  intimate,  one 
or  the  other  of  them  being  my  very  frequent  companion  in 
my  walks.  There  w-as  at  that  time  a  great  propensity  among 
us  all  for  pun-making  —  the  more  extravagant  the  pun  the 
better,  and  there  was  very  little  scruple  about  appropriating 
each  other's  puns.  One  morning  after  breakfast  Evarts  and  I 
were  taking  a  walk  together,  and,  in  passing  through  Meadow 
street,  I  saw  across  the  way  a  house  with  a  very  long  stoop  ex- 
tending out  from  its  rear  end.  Said  I,  pointing  to  it,  Evarts,  that 
is  a  stoop-endous  house."  "Good,"  said  he;  "good."  We 
passed  on,  and  soon  got  round  to  our  rooms.  The  next  morning 
Colton  called  at  my  room  right  after  breakfast,  and  asked  me  to 
go  for  a  walk.  I  started  out  with  him,  and  asked  him  where  we 
should  go.  "  Let's  go  do\vn  this  way,"  said  he,  pointing  to- 
wards Meadow  street.  "  Oh  (said  I),  I  went  down  there  yes- 
terday morning  and  would  rather  go  some  other  way."  "  No 
(said  he),  let's  go  down  there."  So  I  yielded,  and  we  started  in 
that  direction.  As  we  came  to  corners  he  elbowed  me  around 
them,  and  finally  got  me  into  Meadow  street,  opposite  the 
house  with  the  long  stoop.  "  Look  there,"  said  Colton,  "  that 
is  a  stoop-endous  house."  "  I  know  it  is,"  said  I.  "  But  that 
is  not  your  pun."  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  I  own  up.  It  isn't  my 
pun;  it's  Evarts's."  "  Evarts's  pun?  "  said  I.  "  No,  it  is  not. 
It's  mine,  and  I  made  it  to  Evarts  only  yesterday  morning." 
"  Good!  "  said  he.  "  Why,  Evarts  came  to  my  room  yesterday 
evening  just  before  dark,  and  asked  me  to  go  to  walk.  I 
told  him  I  did  not  feel  like  it,  but  he  pressed  me,  and  I  started 
out.  '  Where  shall  we  go? '  said  I.  '  Down  this  way/  said 
he,  pointing  in  this  direction.  '  No  (said  I) ;  one  of  my  last 
walks  was  down  there.  Let's  go  another  way.'  'No  (said  he); 
I  want  to  walk  this  way.'  So  we  started  off,  and  he  navigated 
me  around  the  corners,  till  we  found  ourselves  here,  when  he 
pointed  to  that  house  and  said,  '  Colton,  that's  a  stoop-endous 
house.'  " 

The  Linonian  Society  at  Yale  celebrated  in  1853  its  cen- 
tennial anniversarv.  Mr.  Evarts  delivered  the  commencement 


76  REMINISCENCES. 

address  before  the  alumni.  It  was  a  fine  address,  full  of  elo- 
quent passages.  At  the  commencement  dinner  he  sat  on  the 
platform  with  the  faculty  and  numerous  invited  guests.  The 
name  of  William  Wyckham,  the  founder  of  the  Linonian  So- 
ciety, was  specially  honored  on  the  occasion,  and  wras  displayed 
in  large  letters  on  the  front  of  a  balcony  over  the  platform, 
which  was  filled  with  ladies.  Just  as  we  got  seated  at  dinner 
Professor  (afterwards  President)  Porter  came  to  where  my 
class  sat,  and  asked  me  to  speak  to  the  toast  of  Wyckham, 
which  I,  not  very  wisely,  consented  to  do.  He  told  me  that 
I  should  not  be  reached  till  I  had  had  ample  time  to  think 
the  matter  up,  and  that  I  should  follow  John  Van  Buren, 
who  was  to  respond  to  the  toast  to  the  "  Linonian  Society." 
I  at  once  began  to  get  together  what  little  scraps  of  thought 
I  could  on  the  subject,  and  before  the  speaking  had  laid  out 
a  little  speech  which  I  thought  would  do.  My  anxiety  over 
the  matter,  however,  spoilt  my  dinner.  One  of  my  points, 
and  really  my  best  one,  was  to  refer  to  the  name  of  Wyck- 
ham where  it  was  displayed  on  the  front  of  the  balcony  as 
being  placed  "  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,"  and  "  crowned 
with  glory  and  honor."  But  as  the  speaking  went  on,  one  and 
another  of  the  speakers,  reminded  by  the  prominence  of  the 
name  of  Wyckham  on  the  balcony,  and  with  the  general  in- 
clination on  the  occasion  to  allude  to  him  as  the  founder  of 
the  Linonian  Society,  used  up  one  and  another  of  my  scanty 
points,  until  I  had  none  left  but  the  allusion  to  the  angels,  and 
I  thought  that  I  could,  at  least,  call  attention  to  him  in  that 
place  of  honor,  and  leave  him  there  and  sit  down.  What  oc- 
curred to  bring  my  embarrassment  to  an  acute  stage  is  very 
well  told  in  an  article  on  Hon.  Henry  Barnard  as  the  "  Nestor 
of  American  Education,"  in  the  New  England  Magazine  for 
July,  1896.  The  article  illustrates  Mr.  Barnard's  readiness 
and  ability  as  a  speaker  by  an  account  of  what  he  did  on  this 
occasion.  It  had  mentioned  the  fact  that  he  was  an  enthusi- 
astic member  of  the  Linonian  Society,  and  had  been  its  presi- 
dent, and  that  John  Van  Buren  was  to  respond  to  the  toast  to 
the  "  Linonian  Society,"  as  Rev.  Dr.  Bacon  was  to  that  to  the 
"  Brothers  in  Unity,"  the  rival  society.  It  then  proceeds  as  fol- 
lows : — 


WILLIAM  M.   EVARTS. 


77 


"  Dr.  Bacon  eulogized  the  work  of  his  own  society  and 
pointed  with  pardonable  pride  to  the  Brothers  in  Unity,  whose 
distinguished  services  to  their  country  had  entitled  them  to  the 
honor  of  a  place  in  the  portrait  gallery  of  eminent  graduates. 
Having  lauded  the  work  of  the  Brothers,  he  proceeded  in  a  vein 
of  light  satire  to  speak  of  the  '  trifling  services  of  a  few  other 
gentlemen  whose  pictures  he  saw  around  him,'  referring  to 
the  members  of  the  Linonian  Society,  and  closed  by  looking 
steadily  at  the  portrait  of  the  founder  of  the  Linonians  for  some 
moments  with  a  puzzled  expression,  and  saying  slowly: 
'  Wyckham !  Wyckham !  I  fail  to  remember  at  this  moment 
why  he  should  have  a  place  of  honor  on  these  walls.  I  have 
heard  his  name  mentioned,  however,  as  the  founder  of  some 
literary  society  while  a  student.' 

"  For  some  reason  Mr.  Van  Buren  left  the  platform  before 
the  conclusion  of  Dr.  Bacon's  address,  and  failed  to  respond 
when  called  by  the  chairman.  The  Linonians,  however,  were 
not  dismayed.  Promptly  the  call  for  '  Barnard  '  came  from  all 
parts  of  the  hall;  and  the  young  orator  brilliantly  responded 
to  the  unexpected  summons  to  duty.  The  great  occasion,  the 
splendid  audience,  and  the  unbounded  enthusiasm  of  his  com- 
panions, aroused  his  best  powers,  and  for  a  generation  his 
speech  was  the  boast  of  his  fellow  Linonians.  In  a  few  choice 
sentences  he  emphasized  the  estimate  of  Dr.  Bacon  in  regard 
to  the  Brothers  in  Unity,  and  manfully  acknowledged  the  in- 
debtedness of  posterity  to  such  able  and  noble  men.  Then 
rising  to  the  platform  he  had  thus  constructed,  he  painted  in 
still  more  glowing  colors  the  labors  and  triumphs  of  Linonians, 
naming  Kent,  Hillhouse,  Calhoun  and  others,  reserving  the 
founder  of  the  society  for  his  closing.  Wyckham's  portrait 
hung  just  below  the  front  of  the  ladies'  gallery.  Pointing  to- 
wards it  and  looking  reverently  at  it,  he  stood  for  some  time 
unable  to  proceed  on  account  of  the  tremendous  cheering  of 
the  Linonians,  joined  by  the  entire  audience.  '  What  shall  I 
say  of  him  whose  memory  is  revered  by  all  Linonians?'  said 
he,  when  quiet  was  restored.  '  If  it  be  true,  as  has  been  lightly 
said  to-day,  that  his  only  claim  to  glory  is  that  he  founded  our 
society,  even  Linonians  will  be  satisfied  when  they  know  that 
for  that  supreme  work  so  full  of  beneficence  to  humanity  he 
has  been  placed  "  but  a  little  lower  than  the  angels."  : 


yg  REMINISCENCES. 

Mr.  Barnard  sat  down,  and  the  audience  renewed  its  ap- 
plause. When  this  was  over  the  toast  to  "  William  Wyckham  " 
was  read,  and  it  was  announced  that  Mr.  Hooker,  of  the  class 
of  1837,  would  respond  to  it.  I  had  to  get  up,  but  could  not 
think  of  a  word  to  say  about  Wyckham  that  had  not  been  said, 
and  was  delivered  from  my  terrible  strait  only  by  the  sudden 
thought  of  that  story  about  Evarts.  So  I  said  that  William 
Wyckham  had  been  abundantly  honored  by  the  speakers  who 
had  preceded  me,  who,  in  fact,  had  utterly  used  up  all  the  ma- 
terial that  I  had  mentally  gathered  for  use  in  my  speech.  "  But 
(said  I),  as  I  see  my  classmate  and  friend,  Mr.  Evarts,  on  the 
platform,  I  will  give  you  a  little  incident  of  our  college  life  that 
I  think  will  interest  you."  I  then  told  the  story,  which,  at  its 
close,  drew  out  a  prolonged  roar  of  laughter  and  applause. 
After  the  applause  had  subsided,  I  added:  "  We  have  all  been 
listening  with  delight  to  the  eloquent  periods  of  the  orator  of 
the  day.  I  should  have  enjoyed  them  with  the  rest,  but  for  a 
painful  thought  that  haunted  me  all  through.  It  was  the  fear 
that  some  of  the  finest  of  those  passages  may  have  been  - 
borrowed."  This  brought  out  a  new  response  from  the  assem- 
bly, in  the  midst  of  which  Mr.  Evarts  arose  and  walked  to  the 
front  of  the  platform,  the  applause  bursting  out  again  as  he  did 
so.  When  the  noise  was  over,  he  said  very  quietly:  "I  re- 
member very  well  the  incident  that  Brother  Hooker  mentions. 
Indeed,  the  story  is  one  of  my  favorite  ones,  only  as  I  tell  it  I 
stand  where  he  puts  himself,  and  he  stands  where  he  puts  me." 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  AND  REV.  DR.  PARKER. 

A  serious  controversy  arose  in  1852  between  Mr.  Beecher 
and  Rev.  Dr.  Parker  of  New  York,  growing  out  of  something 
which  Mrs.  Stowe  had  published  with  regard  to  the  latter.  Dr. 
Parker  had  been  for  many  years  a  Presbyterian  clergyman  in 
New  Orleans,  and  had  been  regarded,  though  originally  a 
northern  man,  as  a  defender  of  slavery.  Mrs.  Stowe,  after 
writing  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  published  a  book  called  "  The 
Key  to  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  in  which  she  presented  slavery 
by  a  vast  number  of  quotations  from  southern  orators  and  writ- 
ers and  from  newspaper  advertisements.  Among  these  quo- 
tations and  comments  upon  them  she  had  published  something 


H.   W.  BEE  CHER  AND  REV.  DR.  PARKER. 


79 


which  Dr.  Parker  regarded  as  libellous,  and  he  put  the  matter 
into  the  hands  of  a  New  York  lawyer  to  demand  a  retraction 
and  to  threaten  a  suit  for  a  libel  if  it  were  not  made.  I  am  un- 
able after  so  long  a  time  to  find  what  precisely  the  matter 
claimed  to  be  libellous  was,  and  it  is  not  important  to  the  part  of 
the  controversy  of  which  I  shall  speak. 

Dr.  Parker  before  this  had  left  New  Orleans  and  was 
now  residing  in  New  York.  Mr.  Beecher  undertook  the 
negotiation  with  him  for  an  amicable  settlement  of  the  matter, 
to  which  he  seemed  inclined.  It  was  at  first  proposed  that  a 
joint  card  should  be  published,  but  this  was  given  up  and  an 
exchange  of  letters  was  proposed.  Mr.  Beecher  then  drew  up 
a  form  of  both  letters  and  submitted  them  to  Dr.  Parker,  ex- 
pressing his  confidence  that  Mrs.  Stowe  would  be  satisfied 
with  the  letter  which  he  had  drawn  as  Dr.  Parker's  to  her. 
Mrs.  Stowe  had  given  Mr.  Beecher  an  outline  of  such  a  letter 
as  she  was  willing  to  write  to  Dr.  Parker.  These  two 
letters  soon  after  appeared  in  a  New  York  paper,  with  that 
of  Dr.  Parker  signed  by  his  name.  Not  long  after  they  ap- 
peared Dr.  Parker  came  out  with  a  card  denying  that  he  ever 
signed  the  letter  that  purported  to  come  from  him,  and  charg- 
ing Mr.  Beecher  with  putting  his  name  to  it  without  authority. 
The  matter  attracted  great  attention  in  New  York,  and  all  the 
papers  took  up  against  Mr.  Beecher  in  the  matter,  especially 
when  he  admitted  writing  Dr.  Parker's  name  at  the  bottom  of 
the  letter,  and  they  seemed  to  regard  it  as  substantially  a 
forgery  on  his  part.  He  had  then  been  settled  in  Brooklyn 
but  a  few  years,  and  had  not  acquired  the  position  of  respect 
and  influence  which  he  gained  a  few  years  later. 

Dr.  Parker's  lawyer  published  an  article  presenting  a  legal 
view  of  the  case  against  Mr.  Beecher,  which  greatly  aided  and 
strengthened  the  popular  verdict  against  him.  In  these  cir- 
cumstances it  seemed  to  me  that  a  legal  view  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
side  of  the  case  was  greatly  needed,  and  would  be  very  helpful 
to  him.  I  accordingly  prepared  the  following  article,  which  he 
published  in  the  Independent,  and  afterwards  in  the  New  York 
Times.  He  and  Mrs.  Stowe  were  delighted  with  it,  and  he  soon 
after  wrote  me  that  it  had  turned  the  whole  tide  in  his  favor, 
not  merely  completely  exculpating  him,  but  leaving  Dr.  Parker 


80  REMINISCENCES. 

open  to  most  serious  animadversion.  I  insert  my  defense  of 
him  in  this  book  in  part  as  being  one  of  the  interesting  ex- 
periences of  my  life,  and  in  part  as  an  interesting  and  im- 
portant incident  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Beecher. 

The  public,  chiefly  from  good  nature,  but  partly  from  indolence,  will 
be  found  very  ready  to  adopt  the  conclusion  that  Dr.  Parker  and  Mr. 
Beecher  have  honestly  misunderstood  one  another,  and  that  neither  has 
been  guilty  of  misrepresentation.  Such  a  verdict,  while  it  totally  excul- 
pates Dr.  Parker,  not  only  from  intentional  wrong,  but  from  all  indiscre- 
tion, leaves  Mr.  Beecher,  though  with  integrity  untouched,  yet  convicted 
of  great,  and  perhaps  criminal,  imprudence.  Can  it  be  his  duty  to 
acquiesce  in  such  a  verdict,  when  his  position,  if  the  public  will  patiently 
examine  it,  will  be  found  impregnable  ? 

The  question  of  fact  between  the  parties  is  precisely  such  a  one  as 
lawyers  are  discussing  every  day  in  court ;  and  a  member  of  that  pro- 
fession, in  a  communication  to  the  New  York  Observer  of  October  i4th, 
in  which  he  advocates  the  cause  of  Dr.  Parker,  has  presented  precisely 
the  style  of  argumentation  that  ought  to  be  applied  to  the  case.  As  a 
member  of  the  same  profession,  the  present  writer  asks  the  candid  atten- 
tion of  the  public  to  the  following  suggestions,  which  he  regards  as 
decisive  in  favor  of  Mr.  Beecher. 

But  before  proceeding  to  the  argument,  let  us  spend  a  moment  in  con- 
sidering what  was  the  precise  act  of  Mr.  Beecher  ? 

i.  The  Journal  of  Commerce,  in  an  article  of  a  good  deal  of  fair- 
ness on  the  subject,  says  :  "To  say  the  least  of  the  matter,  it  was  highly 
imprudent  thus  to  affix  another's  name."  And,  again:  "The  facts  to 
support  the  use  of  another's  signature  to  documents  ought  to  be  very 
clear  and  undoubted  before  it  is  done."  And  the  public  generally  have 
regarded  the  matter  as  prominently  a  case  of  signature,  and  of  signa- 
ture to  documents,  thus  attaching  to  the  transaction  the  odium  of  an 
unauthorized  signature  of  a  contract,  making  it  a  sort  of  mitigated 
forgery.  Now  the  correspondence  was  not  of  the  nature  of  a  contract, 
to  be  operative  between  the  parties,  deriving  its  life  from  the  signature 
of  the  parties.  It  was  merely  a  matter  for  publication,  the  original 
letters  being  of  no  consequence  after  the  publication.  It  was  just  as  if 
one  clergyman  should  request  another  to  draw  and  publish  for  him  a 
card,  expressing  his  thanks  for  a  donation  party,  or  as  if  one  man  should 
draw  and  publish  an  advertisement  for  another,  or  as  if  one  of  a  numer- 
ous committee  should  publish  a  notice  of  a  meeting,  and  should  sign  the 
names  of  the  other  members.  These  things  are  done  every  day.  In  all 
these  cases  there  should  be  authority,  express  or  implied,  for  the  act;  but 
the  matter  of  the  signature  becomes  a  totally  different  thing  from  what 
it  is  where  the  paper  signed  is  a  contract,  that  is  to  be  preserved  as  such, 
and  to  have  an  operation  on  the  rights  of  the  parties  as  such. 


H.  IV.  BEECH ER  AND  REV.  DR.  PARKER.  8 1 

2.  It  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  letters  were  drawn  by 
Mr.  Beecher,  with  the  signatures  omitted,  and  in  this  form  discussed  at 
Dr.  Parker's  study,  and  that  Mr.  Beecher  afterwards,  at  home  or  some- 
where, sat  down  to  the  deliberate  and  special  act  of  affixing  Dr.  Parker's 
name.  This  does  Mr.  Beecher  great  injustice.  What  is  the  fact?  Mr. 
Beecher  suggested  that  a  correspondence  be  substituted  for  a  joint  card 
which  had  been  under  consideration  and  Dr.  Parker  left  the  study  that 
he  might  be  alone  to  draw  it.  Could  there  be  clearer  authority  than  this 
for  Mr.  Beecher  to  write  out  a  supposed  correspondence  ?  He  does  so,  and 
as  he  drafts  the  letters  writes  straight  through  the  names.  He  writes 
Mrs.  Stowe's  name  as  well  as  Dr.  Parker's.  He  does  this  because  he  was 
writing,  not  a  contract,  but  an  article  for  a  newspaper,  and  it  was  an  object 
that  both  parties  should  be  able  to  look  at  it,  just  as  if  they  were  reading  it  in 
a  newspaper,  that  they  might  see  how  it  would  strike  them.  This  we  sup- 
pose to  be  the  reason  ;  but  if  it  were  not,  and  if,  indeed,  it  were  done 
without  a  reason,  still  it  does  not  alter  the  fact.  The  correspondence 
thus  complete  is  shown  to  Dr.  Parker.  He  makes  no  objection  on  the 
ground  that  his  name  has  been  thus  written  ;  neither  party  thinks  of  this 
as  important ;  they  merely  discuss  the  character  of  the  letters,  and,  as 
Mr.  Beecher  claims,  they  were  approved  and  agreed  on  for  publication  ; 
as  Dr.  Parker  claims,  they  were  qualinedly  approved,  and  were  to  be 
further  considered  by  him.  But  the  fact  is  not  denied  that  the  letters 
were  twice  read  by  Dr.  Parker,  were  handed  by  him  to  Mr.  Beecher,  and 
by  Mr.  Beecher  carried  away  to  be  sent  to  Mrs.  Stowe  for  approval.  Mr. 
Beecher's  error  then  —  if  there  was  any  —  was  not  in  using  Dr.  Parker's 
name ;  it  was  simply  in  piiblishing  the  letters,  or,  rather,  in  prema- 
turely publishing  them.  This  is  a  very  different  thing  from  an  unauth- 
orized use  of  another'  signature.  Whether  Mr.  Beecher  was  in  the 
right  or  in  the  wrong,  the  act  done  by  him  should  not  be  confounded 
with  that  of  "signing  another  man's  name  to  documents." 

It  is,  then,  doing  great  injustice  to  Mr.  Beecher  to  endeavor  to  fasten 
upon  him  the  odium  of  even  an  "imprudent"  use  of  another's  name. 
He  is  in  no  manner  blameworthy  unless  he  published  the  letters  without 
authority  from  Dr.  Parker,  either  actually  given  or  supposed  by  him  to 
have  been  given. 

Now,  as  no  conceivable  motive  can  be  found  for  the  unauthorized 
publication  of  the  letters,  but,  on  the  contrary,  every  motive  applicable 
in  the  case  against  it,  especially  as  it  would  only  worse  embroil  the  con- 
troversy, which  he  was  desirous  (no  one  can  doubt  sincerely)  to  settle, 
and  as  Mr.  Beecher  himself  declares  that  he  understood  the  fullest 
authority  to  have  been  given,  no  one,  who  has  any  candor  or  good  sense, 
can  fail  to  acquit  him  of  all  intentional  wrong,  even  if  entirely  satisfied 
that  Dr.  Parker  did  not,  in  fact,  give  such  authority.  Here  the  matter 
might  be  left,  with  perhaps  no  very  serious  damage  resulting  to  either 


82  REMINISCENCES. 

party,  since  the  public,  with  too  much  real  and  intentional  injustice  daily 
before  their  eyes,  have  little  time  or  patience  to  follow  up  and  remember 
unintentional  and  accidental  wrong. 

But  upon  the  question  on  which  Dr.  Parker  and  Mr.  Beecher  are  at 
issue,  viz.:  'as  to  whether  the  former  did  in  fact  assent  to  the  letters  and 
authorize  their  publication,  the  case  is  entirely  clear  for  Mr.  Beecher. 

And  now  what  is  this  exact  question  ? 

And  here  we  are  to  observe  that  there  can  be  no  question  but  that  the 
letters,  when  their  form  was  fully  agreed  on,  were  to  be  piiblished ; 
that  is,  that  both  parties  understood  them  as  intended  for  publication. 
This  is  evident  from  the  following  facts  :  i.  They  were  substituted  for 
the  card,  which  it  is  agreed  was  to  have  been  forthwith  published.  2. 
Dr.  Parker's  constant  demand  was  that  he  should  be  set  right  before  the 
public.  3.  Mr.  Butler  understood  that  the  letters  were  to  be  published, 
although  he  supposed  (of  his  own  conjecture  simply)  that  they  were  to 
be  further  considered  by  Dr.  Parker  before  publication.  4.  Dr.  Parker 
does  not  deny  that  they  were  intended  for  publication,  but. simply  that 
he  did  not  assent  to  them  in  their  present  form.  If,  therefore,  the  letters 
were  assented  to  by  Dr.  Parker,  they  were  properly  published.  The 
question  is,  therefore,  narrowed  down  to  the  simple  one,  whether  Dr. 
Parker  assented  to  them  in  the  form  in  which  they  were  published. 

That  we  may  see  still  more  clearly  what  is  the  question  between  the 
parties,  let  us  look  at  the  affirmations  of  each. 

Mr.  Beecher  affirms  that  Dr.  Parker  approved  the  letters,  subject  to 
his  counsel's  approval  (and,  of  course,  Mrs.  Stowe's  adoption  of  her  letter 
without  alteration),  and  authorized  their  publication.  Dr.  Parker  affirms 
(letter  to  Professor  Stowe,  June  3oth)  that  the  letters  "  were  not  written, 
nor  signed,  nor  sanctioned"  by  him,  and  that  they  were  published 
"  without  his  knowledge  or  consent"  ;  and  (letter  to  Observer,  July  31): 
"  I  agreed  to  have  it  under  advisement,  and  encouraged  the  expectation 
that,  with  some  modification,  we  might  settle  the  whole  matter  by  some 
such  method"  and  "  I  could  never  have  been  induced  to  sign  them  as 
they  were,  nor  to  accept  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  letter  as  satisfactory,"  and  (let- 
ter to  Observer,  October  4),  "I  said  to  him  distinctly  that  they  would 
have  to  be  modified."  (A  strange  case  for  an  honest  misunderstanding.) 
Here,  then,  is  the  issue  between  the  parties  ;  now  let  us  look  at  the  cir- 
cumstantial evidence. 

i.  If  Dr.  Parker  was  simply  to  have  the  letters  under  consideration, 
and  to  consult  upon  with  his  legal  adviser,  why  did  he  not  take  a  copy 
of  them?  He  says  in  his  letter  to  the  Observer  of  July  3ist  that  he 
took  no  copy,  and  does  not  know  certainly  whether  the  letters  published 
are  the  same  (that  is,  precisely  the  same)  that  were  written  at  his  study. 
Now,  how  could  he  have  had  the  letters  under  advisement  —  much  more, 


H.   W.  BEECH ER  AND  REV.  DR.  PARKER.  83 

how  could  he  lay  them  before  his  counsel,  without  a  copy?  It  is  to  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  question  to  be  considered  was  not  the  general  one 
whether  there  should  be  an  amicable  settlement;  all  were  agreed  on  this; 
but  the  minute  and  particular  question  what  exactly  that  settlement 
should  be.  It  turned  wholly  upon  details,  upon  the  use  of  one  word 
rather  than  another,  and  upon  shades  of  meaning.  It  was  clearly  impos- 
sible to  have  considered  and  consulted  upon  the  matter  without  a  copy. 
It  may  be  said  that  his  counsel  would  see  the  letters,  since  it  was  agreed 
that  Mr.  Beecher  should  call  and  show  them  to  him  ;  but  would  Mr.  But- 
ler, from  such  hasty  perusal,  be  able  a  day  or  a  week  after  to  sit  down 
with  his  client  to  an  intelligent  and  critical  examination  of  the  letters  ? 
Much  more,  could  they  frame  and  fit  in  the  various  "modifications" 
which  Dr.  Parker  had  told  Mr.  Beecher,  as  he  says,  would  have  to  be 
made,  and  which  it  was,  of  course,  for  Dr.  Parker  to  propose?  Clearly 
not.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Dr.  Parker  does  not  pretend  that  at 
the  time  of  the  interview  he  requested  Mr.  Beecher  to  send  him  a  copy 
of  the  letters  afterwards,  or  that  any  arrangement  was  proposed  under 
which  Mr.  Beecher  should  call  on  him  again  with  the  letters,  or  un- 
der which  the  letters  themselves  should  be  sent  to  him ;  but  it  seems 
admitted  that  Mr.  Beecher  took  his  final  leave,  carrying  them  with  him, 
and  leaving  Dr.  Parker  (according  to  his  claim)  to  consider  and  take 
counsel,  as  well  as  he  was  able,  without  the  originals  or  a  copy,  and  in- 
form Mr.  Beecher  of  the  result. 

2.  If  Dr.  Parker  was  to  have  the  letters  under  consideration,  and  to 
lay  them  before  his  counsel  for  advice,  why  did  he  not  directly  after 
call  on  his  counsel  for  ad-vice  ?  Bear  in  mind  that  he  has  shown  much 
impatience  of  delay  up  to  this  point ;  letters  have  followed  letters  in 
quick  succession.  Here,  according  to  his  claim,  is  a  step  in  the  settle- 
ment which  he  seems  so  anxious  to  effect,  that  is  left  with  him  for 
determination,  and  the  whole  settlement  is  to  wait  for  that  determina- 
tion. Would  he  not  at  once  call  on  his  counsel  for  advice  ?  And  that  for 
two  reasons  :  One,  to  avoid  loss  of  time,  and  the  other,  to  avail  himself, 
as  he  had  no  copy,  of  his  own  and  his  counsel's  fresh  recollection  of  the 
contents  of  the  letters.  He  admits  that  it  was  agreed  that  Mr.  Beecher 
should  go  at  once  and  read  the  letters  to  Mr.  Butler,  and  he  had  no  rea- 
son to  doubt  that  he  had  done  so.  Yet  we  find  no  evidence  that  Dr. 
Parker  called  on  his  counsel  at  all  during  the  fourteen  days  that  inter- 
vened between  the  interview  of  June  loth  and  the  publication  of  the 
letters  on  June  24th.  Dr.  Parker  himself  has  not  claimed  that  he  did  so, 
and  the  fact  is  so  vitally  important  that  he  would  have  claimed  it  if  the 
truth  would  have  allowed  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  says  in  his  letter  of 
June  3oth  to  Professor  Stowe,  twenty  days  after  the  interview  :  "I  am 
not  aware  whether  Mr.  Beecher  saw  my  counsel  or  not ;  I  have  made  re- 
peated efforts  to  see  him  (Mr.  Butler)  since  my  return,  for  I  have  been 


84  REMINISCENCES. 

absent,"  etc.  It  is  plain,  then,  it  was  not  till  after  the  publication  of  the 
letters  that  he  attempted  to  see  his  counsel,  and  then  only  because  of 
their  publication  ;  and,  as  we  understand  the  facts,  he  left  town  shortly 
before  the  publication,  having  done  nothing  toward  a  determination  of 
the  matter  which  he  claims  was  submitted  to  him,  and  in  precisely  the 
manner  of  one  who  had  nothing  to  do  on  the  subject. 

And  here  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  expected  Mr.  Beecher  to  call  again. 
First.  —  Dr.  Parker  does  not  pretend  that  it  was  understood  that  he  was 
to  do  so.  Second.  —  Had  this  been  even  proposed,  Mr.  Beecher  would 
at  once  have  informed  Dr.  Parker  that  he  was  to  leave  home  imme- 
diately, and  could  not  possibly  call  again. 

These  two  facts,  of  his  retaining  no  copy,  and  not  attempting  to  con- 
sult his  counsel,  show  not  only  that  the  letters  were  not,  in  fact,  to  be 
held  under  advisement,  but  that  Dr.  Parker  did  not  understand  that  they 
were  so  to  be  held.  So  much  for  the  theory  of  an  innocent  misunder- 
standing. 

3.  If  Dr.  Parker  did  not  assent  to  the  letters,  then  we  find  the  parties 
involved  in  this  absurdity  :   The  card  of  Mrs.  Stowe  had  been  "  tinkered  " 
until  it  was  made  on  the  whole  acceptable  to  Dr.  Parker.     Mr.  Beecher, 
however,  does  not  exactly  like  it,  and  finally,  at  his  suggestion,  it  is 
thrown  aside,  and  a  correspondence  substituted  that  Dr.  Parker  "  could 
never  have  been  induced  to  sign,"  and  which  he  told  Mr.  Beecher  "  dis- 
tinctly would  have  to  be  modified."     Mr.  Beecher  had  gone  there  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  effecting  a  settlement  on  some  terms.    Nobody  can  doubt 
that  he  was  sincere  and  earnest  in  the  matter.      This  settlement,  really 
on  the  eve  of  being  effected  by  means  of  the  card,  he  voluntarily  throws 
aside,  and  leaves  the  matter  all  open  —  to  rest  on  a  correspondence  that 
Dr.  Parker  distinctly  dissented  to  in  its  present  form,  and  only  encour- 
aged the  hope  that  it  might  be  a  basis  of  future  settlement.      And  this, 
too,  when  he  was  just  leaving  home  for  an  absence  of  several  weeks  at 
the  West,  and  could  not  possibly  call  on  Dr.  Parker  again.      This  is  too 
absurd  to  be  believed,  and  can  be  explained  only  by  the  supposition  that 
Mr.  Beecher  understood  him  to  agree  to  the  letters,  when,  in  fact,  he 
"  told  him  distinctly  that  they  must  be  modified."   But  can  it  be  that  Dr. 
Parker  could  have  thus  expressed  his  dissent,  and  Mr.  Beecher  not  have 
known  it  ?    And  can  it  be  that  Mr.  Beecher  would  fail  to  get  his  explicit 
assent  or  dissent  to  the  letters,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  leave  no  room 
for  doubt  ? 

4.  If  Dr.  Parker  told  Mr.  Beecher  "  distinctly  that  the  letters  would 
have  to  be  modified,"  and  could  never  have  been  induced  to  sign  them  as. 
they  were,  or  to  accept  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  letter  as  satisfactory,  is  it  not  in 
the  highest  degree  absurd  that  Mr.  Beecher  should  have  sent  them  to 
Mrs.   Stowe  for  approval,   when,   after  obtaining  that   approval,  they 
would  have  to  be  altered  to  suit  Dr.  Parker,  and  sent  on  a  second  time 


H.   W.  BEECHER  AND   REV.  DR.  PARKER.  85 

for  her  approval  01  the  modifications,  making  the  first  act  an  entirely 
nugatory  and  foolish  one  ?  It  is  perfectly  clear  that  Mr.  Beecher  would 
have  insisted  that  Dr.  Parker  state  the  modifications  which  "must  be 
made,"  and  that  his  side  of  the  correspondence  be  definitely  settled  be- 
fore the  letters  were  sent  to  Mrs.  Stowe.  It  is  absurd,  too,  that  Mr. 
Beecher  should  have  gone  to  Mr.  Butler,  and  that,  too,  by  agreement 
with  Dr.  Parker,  as  the  latter  admits,  for  his  approval  of  the  letters  in 
their  present  form,  when  Dr.  Parker  "could  never  have  been  induced  to 
sign  them  as  they  were,  or  to  accept  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  letter  as  satisfac- 
tory." This  fact  is  enough  to  put  the  question  at  rest  forever. 

5.  Another  remarkable  item  of  evidence  on  the  point  in  issue  has 
recently  been  furnished  by  Dr.  Parker  himself  in  his  letter  to  Professor 
Stowe  of  June  gth,  and  which  had  been  overlooked  until  a  copy  of  it 
was  published  by  him.  This  letter  seems  to  have  been  written  shortly 
after  the  interview  with  Mr.  Beecher.  (At  least  Dr.  Parker  claims  this, 
and  probably  correctly ;  but,  if  so,  there  is  a  mistake  in  the  date,  as  the 
interview  occurred  on  the  loth  of  June,  and  the  letter  is  dated  the  day 
before.)  In  it  he  says  :  "  Your  very  kind  note  of  the  yth  has  just  come 
to  hand.  But  an  hour  before  receiving  it  I  had  a  friendly  interview  with 
the  Rev.  H.  W.  Beecher,  an  interview  that  seems  to  me  to  promise  an 
amicable  arrangement '."  Now,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  Dr.  Parker 
has  from  the  first  been  making  an  effort  to  get  a  satisfactory  acknowledg- 
ment from  Mrs.  Stowe,  He  frequently  uses  the  expression  that  all  he 
demands  is  simple  justice,  to  be  set  right  before  the  public,  and  the  like, 
showing  that  he  was  the  party  asking  something  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  rather 
than  Mrs.  Stowe  of  him.  In  the  interview  with  her  brother,  her  card, 
offered  by  her  as  her  ultimatum,  and  which  she  directed  to  have  pub- 
lished without  alteration  if  Dr.  Parker  did  not  accept  it,  had  been,  con- 
trary to  her  directions,  thrown  aside  and  a  correspondence  substituted. 
This  correspondence  Dr.  Parker  (as  we  claim)  approved,  but  it  was 
wholly  uncertain  whether  Mrs.  Stowe  would  approve  it,  though  highly 
probable  that  she  would.  It  is  accordingly  sent  to  her  with  her  brother's 
recommendation.  Very  soon  after  Dr.  Parker  writes  the  above  letter  to 
Prof.  Stowe,  and  in  it  speaks  of  the  interview  as  "  seeming  to  promise  an 
amicable  arrangement. "  Now,  what  is  this  but  the  language  of  one  expect- 
ing with  some  confidence  a  favorable  conclusion,  which  he  much  desires, 
from  another — of  one  waiting  for  something  outward  and  independens 
of  himself,  rather  than  for  a  decision  of  his  own  mind  ?  At  any  rate,  it 
it  at  all  the  language  of  one  who  had  already  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
could  never  be  induced  to  sign  the  letters  as  they  were,  nor  be  satisfied 
with  Mrs.  Stowe's  letter  ?  Remember  that  it  is  not  pretended  that  Mr. 
Beecher  gave  Dr.  Parker  any  encouragement  to  expect  any  modification 
of  the  letters  or  any  further  concession.  The  question  is  pending  with 
Mrs.  Stowe  whether  she  will  adopt  the  letter  written  in  her  name.  In 


86  REMINISCENCES. 

these  circumstances  Dr.  Parker  writes  to  her  husband,  not  only  that  he 
hopes  for  an  amicable  arrangement  from  the  interview,  but  that  he 
"  desires  nothing  but  the  simplest  and  plainest  justice,  and  will  not 
intentionally  make  a  particle  of  unnecessary  trouble."  Is  this  the  Ian" 
guage  of  a  man  who  had  just  come  out  of  an  interview  with  the  feeling 
that  he  could  never  be  induced  to  sign  the  letters  as  they  were,  and  who 
does  not  pretend  that  any  encouragement  whatever  had  been  given  him 
that  they  would  be  modified,  and  who  had  just  "  told  Mr.  Beecher  dis- 
tinctly that  they  must  be  modified ',"  or  is  it  the  language  of  a  man  who 
is  in  a  good  humor  and  is  waiting  in  confident  expectation  for  the  assent 
of  the  other  party  to  terms  of  settlement  already  acceded  to  by  him  — 
that  settlement  having  long  been  an  object  of  desire  and  pursuit,  and 
now  so  nearly  and  probably  attained  ? 

So  much  for  the  evidence  furnished  by  the  conduct  of  the  parties,  and 
by  the  probabilities  of  the  case,  which,  as  the  parties  contradict  one  an- 
other and  Mr.  Butler's  letter  throws  no  light  on  the  question  (since  his 
expectation  that  the  letters  would  be  further  passed  upon  by  Dr.  Parker 
was  grounded,  as  is  admitted,  only  on  his  own  conjecture,  and  not  on 
anything  said  by  Mr.  Beecher),  is  the  only  reliable  evidence  in  the  case. 
But  it  is  said  that  Dr.  Parker  could  have  had  no  motive  for  denying  the 
letters  if  he  had  in  fact  approved  them,  and  that  this  absence  of  motive 
is  a  strong  fact  in  his  favor.  On  this  point  we  will  say  a  few  words. 

1 .  The  inquiry  after  the  motives  is  generally  important  in  cases  like 
the  present ;  but  the  absence  of  any  discovered  or  plausibly-conjectured 
motive  is  never  sufficient  to  disprove  a  fact  that  is  sufficiently  proved  by 
other  evidence,  nor  to  warrant  the  conclusion  that  some  secret  and  unsus- 
pected motive  may  not  have  existed. 

2.  If  no  motive  can  be  discovered,  then  this  fact  must  be  simply  set 
off   against  the  absence  of  all  conceivable  motive  on  the  part  of  Mr. 
Beecher  for  the  conduct  with  which  he  is  charged. 

3.  We  can  suggest  the  following  as  a  possible  motive  :     It  would  be 
an  object  with  Dr.  Parker,  for  the  sake  of  enhancing  damages  in  his 
suit,  to  make  the  injury  received  appear  as  aggravated  as  possible. 
Nothing  would  serve  this  purpose  better  than  to  convict  Mrs.  Stowe  and 
her  brother  (acting  as  her  agent)  of  this  fraud.     We  can  see  at  once  that 
if  Dr.  Parker  had  succeeded  in  proving  these  letters  a  forgery,  and  then 
had  gone  on  with  his  suit,  this  inexcusable  wrong  would  have  added 
immensely  to  his  damages.      Every  lawyer  knows  this  to  be  a  common 
artifice  of  unscrupulous  litigants.     But  we  think  Dr.  Parker  incapable  of 
such  deliberate  villainy  as  this,  and  suggest  it  only  to  show  that  a  motive 
strong  enough  may  be  conjectured  with  some  plausibility.     The  real  ex- 
planation we  think  to  be  the  following  : 

4.  The  interview,   Dr.   Parker  says,  was  a  friendly  one,  and  Mr. 
Beecher  says  that  they  were  in  the  best  humor.      Both  parties  were 


H.   W.  BEECHER  AND  REV.  DR.  PARKER.  87 

sincerely  desirous  of  a  settlement,  and  Dr.  Parker  was  willing,  with 
Christian  magnanimity,  to  accept  of  easy  terms.  He  is  in  a  persuasible 
mood.  Mr.  Beecher,  as  thousands  can  attest,  is  a  little  magnetic  in  his 
influence.  In  these  circumstances  Dr.  Parker,  perhaps  unwarily,  assents, 
but  fully  assents,  to  the  letters  which  he  now  disapproves  and  disavows. 
He  is  satisfied,  and  thinks  no  more  of  the  matter  till  they  are  published. 
When  the  letters  appear,  his  friends  (some  of  them  maliciously  disposed 
toward  the  other  party)  express  their  surprise  that  he  could  have  assented 
to  such  a  settlement. 

As  illustrations  of  the  mode  in  which  his  friends  probably  "  dealt" 
with  him,  we  would  cite  the  following :  The  Christian  Observer  of 
Philadelphia,  in  an  editorial  under  date  of  October  2,  1852,  says:  "  We 
read  the  letters  with  amazement !  We  were  surprised  that  Dr.  Parker 
should  permit  Mrs.  Stowe  or  any  one  '  to  set '  him  '  right  before  the 
public''  in  the  style  of  Mrs.  S.'s  letter,  or  that  he  should  ever  ask  to  be 
'  allowed'  to  publish  such  a  letter."  The  New  York  Observer,  in  an 
editorial  under  date  of  October  yth,  says:  "The  publication  of  these 
letters  took  the  friends  of  Dr.  Parker  by  surprise.  Many  had  feelings  of 
profound  contempt  for  a  man  who  could  sign  himself  '  yours,  with  un- 
abated esteem,'  for  a  woman  who  had  pursued  the  course  of  Mrs. 
Stowe,"  etc.* 

Dr.  Parker  could  not  but  be  affected  by  such  opinions  from  his 
friends. 

He  at  .once  tells  them  that  he  did  not  fully  assent  to  the  letters,  — 
expected  some  modification  of  them, — had  no  idea  that  they  would  be 


*Lest  the  foregoing  paragraph  should  be  misunderstood,  I  add  a  word  of 
explanation.  These  extracts  are  from  papers  of  later  date  than  Dr.  Parker's 
denial  to  Professor  Stowe  of  any  authority  given  Mr.  Beecher  to  publish  the 
letter.  I  refer  to  them  only  as  showing  the  feeling  of  his  friends  as  they  read 
the  two  letters  published  by  Mr.  Beecher,  and  which  they  undoubtedly  ex- 
pressed freely  to  him  when  they  met  him.  There  were  undoubtedly  comments 
of  the  same  general  character  in  the  New  York  papers  at  the  time,  but  I  did 
not,  when  I  wrote  the  article,  take  the  trouble  to  look  them  up.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  he  at  once  encountered  severe  criticism  from  his  friends,  for 
what  they  regarded  as  his  pusillanimity  in  signing  the  letter.  All  this  must 
have  operated  on  his  mind,  and  led  him  a  few  days  later  to  write  Professor 
Stowe  as  he  did.  Mrs.  Stowe's  reply,  leaving  the  whole  matter  to  her  brother 
to  deal  with,  led  Dr.  Parker  to  postpone  all  action  in  the  matter,  as  Mr. 
Beecher  had  gone  West  and  and  would  not  return  for  several  weeks.  When 
finally  he  did  return,  Dr.  Parker,  instead  of  communicating  with  him,  after  a 
while  published  a  card,  disavowing  the  letter  and  denying  Mr.  Beecher's 
authority  in  the  matter.  This  brought  the  matter  before  the  public,  and  it 
was  at  once  taken  up  and  commented  on  by  all  the  public  papers,  as  we  see  it 
to  have  been  by  the  extracts  I  have  given  from  papers  of  October  ad  and  7th. 
The  legal  argument  of  Mr.  Butler,  Dr.  Parker's  counsel,  appeared  in  the  New 
York  Observer  of  October  i4th. 


38  REMINISCENCES. 

published  till  he  had  seen  them  again,  etc.  He  dwells  on  this  thought 
till  he  brings  himself  almost,  perhaps  quite,  to  believe  it,  and  finally  gets 
committed  fully  to  this  assertion,  and  so  has  to  stand  by  it  now.  This 
supposition  accounts  perfectly  for  what  must  have  seemed  to  most  people 
an  unaccountable  fact,  namely:  that  he  did  not  at  once  come  out  with  a 
card  disavowing  the  correspondence.  His  letter  to  Professor  Stowe  of 
June  3oth,  six  days  after  the  publication,  in  which  he  says  that  he  does 
not  like  to  do  this,  as  they  may  have  been  published  by  mistake,  fur- 
nishes no  sufficient  explanation,  as  he  could  have  stated  this  in  his  card, 
thus  correcting  his  own  position  before  the  public  and  charging  no  im- 
propriety on  the  other  party.  Especially  would  he  have  done  this  when 
Mrs.  Stowe  referred  him  in  reply  to  her  brother,  who  was  to  be  absent 
for  several  weeks  longer,  during  which  time  the  error  could  not  be  cor- 
rected unless  in  this  inoffensive  manner  by  himself.  This  is  the  more 
striking  when  we  consider  that  he  finally  gave  the  matter  publicity  in 
the  worst  possible  form,  without  ever  having  ascertained  whether  they 
were  published  by  an  innocent  mistake,  when  he  knew  that  Mr.  Beecher's 
failure  to  write  him  on  his  return  might  be  owing  to  forgetfulness,  or 
possibly  to  the  neglect  of  Mrs.  Stowe  to  communicate  with  him  on  the 
subject.  It  seems  to  us  that  he  wrote  to  Professor  Stowe,  thinking  that 
Mrs.  Stowe,  not  informed  of  the  particulars  of  the  interview  with  her 
brother,  and  not  able  to  ascertain  them  easily  in  his  absence,  would  prob- 
ably at  once,  under  her  husband's  advice  and  in  a  spirit  of  conciliation, 
agree  on  a  revocation  of  the  letters,  and  a  public  card  to  that  effect,  ex- 
plaining the  matter  as  a  misunderstanding,  and  that  Mr.  Beecher,  on  his 
return,  would  not  think  it  worth  while  to  disturb  the  arrangement.  But 
her  reference  of  the  matter  to  her  brother  —  the  very  man  whom  he 
wished  to  avoid,  and  of  whose  absence  he  was  attempting  to  avail  him- 
self—  completely  defeated  this  object.  This  explains  why  he  did  not 
follow  up  the  matter  with  Mr.  Beecher  on  his  return,  but  preferred  to 
leave  himself  in  (what  he  regarded  as)  a  false  and  mortifying  position 
before  the  public  for  two  months  longer  rather  than  to  meet  him  on  the 
subject.  It  is  true  he  had  reason  to  expect  a  communication  from  Mr. 
Beecher ;  but  in  such  a  position  Dr.  Parker  would  not  be  very  likely  to 
stand  on  ceremony,  or  wait  long  for  such  a  communication.  If  conscious 
of  being  in  the  right,  he  would  have  gone  at  once  to  Mr.  Beecher.  Thus 
the  matter  stands,  —  Dr.  Parker  all  the  while  reluctant  to  take  it  in  hand 
till  the  unwise  eagerness  of  his  friends  gets  it  before  the  public,  and  he 
is  thrown  into  a  necessity  of  abandoning  his  indecision  and  assuming 
boldly  his  present  attitude. 

We  sincerely  believe  this  explanation  of  Dr.  Parker's  conduct  to  be 
the  true  one.  But,  if  we  are  mistaken,  it  does  not  affect  our  previous 
argument. 


SI'S  AN  B.  ANTHONY'S  FIFTIETH  BIRTHDAY. 


89 


Mrs.  Stowe  a  few  days  afterward  sent  me  this  note: 

DEAR  JOHN  :  —  I  have  just  read  your  defense  of  Henry  against  Dr. 
Parker's  charge.  It  is  the  best  piece  of  bricklaying  I  ever  knew.  I 
cannot  thank  you  enough  for  it.  Affectionately, 

H.    B.    S. 
SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY'S  50TH  BIRTHDAY. 

Aliss  Anthony  became  fifty  years  old  on  the  I5th  day  of 
February,  1870.  She  had  for  many  years  been  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  woman  suffrage  and  a  leader  in  the  movement,  and 
had  had  the  earnest  sympathy  and  aid  of  my  wife  in  that  service. 
A  Mrs.  Phelps  of  New  York  city,  a  lady  of  wealth  and  culture, 
was  a  strong  friend  of  her  personally  and  of  her  cause,  and  gave 
an  elegant  reception  to  her  and  her  friends  on  the  occasion. 
My  wife  left  home  to  attend  it  at  noon  on  the  day  before,  stop- 
ping at  New  Haven  over  night,  and  getting  to  Mrs.  Phelps's 
house  about  ten  the  next  forenoon.  I  was  intending  to  devote 
the  I4th  to  some  important  and  absorbing  law  work  in  my  study 
at  home,  and  had  just  got  fairly  started  upon  it  in  the  forenoon 
when  my  wife  came  in  with  the  earnest  request  that  I  would 
write  some  humorous  lines  for  her  to  read  at  the  reception. 
She  had  an  unbounded  faith  in  my  power  to  turn  off  such 
lines  on  almost  any  subject  and  upon  very  short  notice.  With 
a  great  desire  to  please  her,  I  pushed  my  law  papers  aside  and 
appealed  for  inspiration  to  the  muses.  Alas,  my  appeal  was  in 
vain.  My  mind  was  so  possessed  by  the  law  matter  that  had 
got  rightful  possession  of  it  that  I  found  it  useless  to  try  to 
break  away,  and  especially  to  escape  into  the  field  of  fancy,  and 
finally  went  back  to  my  law.  Just  before  dinner  my  wife 
looked  in  to  see  what  I  had  written,  when  I  had  to  tell  her  of 
my  total  failure.  She  was  greatly  disappointed,  but  accepted 
what  seemed  the  inevitable,  and  after  dinner  went  to  the  rail- 
road station  to  take  passage  for  New  Haven.  After  she  had 
gone  I  went  back  to  my  law,  but  felt  so  much  touched  by  her 
disappointment,  and  by  her  look  of  half  reproach,  that  I  found 
no  attraction  in  my  law,  and,  finding  that  if  I  could  send  her  a 
poem  by  the  six  o'clock  mail  it  would  get  to  New  York  just  in 
season  for  her  to  find  it  on  her  arrival  at  Mrs.  Phelps's  the  next 
morning,  I  went  to  work  with  a  will  to  accomplish  this  very 


go  REMINISCENCES. 

gratifying  result.  I  had  my  son,  then  a  lad  of  fifteen,  hold  him- 
self ready  to  run  in  to  the  post-office  with  it,  and  by  half-past 
five  I  had  written  and  copied  the  poem,  and  he  posted  it  in 
season  for  the  evening  mail,  and  the  next  morning  my  wrife, 
to  her  great  surprise  and  gratification,  found  it  waiting  for 
her  when  she  got  to  Mrs.  Phelps's.  The  poem  was  read  by 
her  at  the  reception,  was  exceedingly  well  received,  and  was 
afterwards  printed  in  a  periodical  which  Miss  Anthony  pub- 
lished. It  would  hardly  be  worth  inserting  here,  but  for  the 
circumstances  which  give  it  a  picturesque  framing,  and  a  place 
among  the  pleasant  reminiscences  of  my  life.  Here  are  the 
lines: 

FOR  THE  FIFTIETH  BIRTHDAY  OF  S.  B.  A.,  FEBRUARY  15,  1870. 
•  What !     Fifty  years  !     Who  would  have  guessed  it  ! 
You  shouldn't,  Susan,  have  confessed  it. 
Yet  so  it  must  be.     Fifty  years 
Have  smiled  their  sunshine,  wept  their  tears, 
Since,  cold  with  frost  and  white  with  snow, 
With  wintry  winds  the  news  to  blow, 
The  earth  gave  welcome,  glad  yet  wild, 
To  thee,  her  own  prophetic  child. 
Were  there  no  portents,  no  wild  throe 
Of  nature,  fifty  years  ago? 
No  quakes  of  earth,  no  clash  of  stars, 
As  earth  received  our  maiden  Mars  ? 

Ah  none  there  were;  yet  I  feel  sure 

Thy  Quaker  mother,  calm,  demure, 

Wondered  sometimes  at  thy  unrest, 

And  feared  thou  wert  a  babe  unblest. 

She  thought  'twas  stomach-ache,  it  may  be, 

Or  other  common  ill  of  baby, 

And  little  dreamed  what  thou  wert  dreaming, 

Nor  weened  what  thou,  un weaned,  wert  scheming. 

Ah,  fearless  Susan,  even  then 

Thou  saw'st  in  dreams  us  horrid  men  — 

Our  laws  made  only  for  aggression, 

Thy  gentle  sex  in  sad  repression, 

The  boys  unlovely,  girls  unloved  ; 

No  wonder  thy  young  heart  was  moved, 

And  that  thou  vow'dst  an  infant  vow, 

Which  thou  has  kept  from  then  till  now, 

To  keep  us  savage  men  indicted 

Until  that  dreadful  wrong  was  righted. 


SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY'S  FIFTIETH  BIRTHDAY.      91 

Susan,  them  well  that  vow  hast  kept ; 

No  nun  in  lonelier  cell  e'er  slept ; 

On  lonely  ways  thy  walk  thou'st  taken  ; 

All  common  earthly  joys  forsaken  ; 

—  Sweet  home,  to  none  more  dear  than  thee, 

The  charm  of  prattling  infancy, 

All  that  thy  loving  heart  could  bless. 

Thy  heart  of  rarest  tenderness. 

Well,  Susan,  thy  success  is  sure  ; 
No  hoary  wrong  can  long  endure, 
When  faith  and  courage  such  as  thine 
Are  consecrate  on  such  a  shrine. 
Thy  faith  and  courage  shall  prevail 
Against  our  jointed  coats  of  "  male," 
And  we  shall  find  how  great  the  blunder 
We  didn't  long  ago  go  under, 
And  (gospel  lovers)  help  displace 
The  reign  of  law  for  that  of  grace. 

That  time  will  come  ;  may  I  be  there  to  see. 
That  time  will  come  ;  and  there  may  Susan  B. 


THE  GREAT  ROTHSCHILD  AT  PARIS. 

In  the  summer  of  1857  I  spent  several  weeks  in  Paris,  and 
while  there  went  with  a  lady  friend  to  St.  Germain.  On  our 
way  back  we  stopped  at  Meudon,  for  the  purpose  of  visiting 
the  tomb  of  Josephine  at  Rueil,  about  two  miles  from  Meudon, 
an  omnibus  running  there  from  the  station.  On  our  way  back 
there  sat  next  me  in  the  omnibus  a  portly  man  of  about  sixty, 
whose  features  were  of  a  decidedly  Hebrew  cast,  who,  seeing 
that  I  was  a  stranger,  very  politely  pointed  out  to  me  one  and 
another  object  of  interest  on  our  way.  He  spoke  very  good 
English.  On  arriving  at  the  station  an  official  at  the  gate  re- 
fused to  allow  my  companion  and  myself  to  go  through  upon 
our  tickets,  stating  in  his  rapid  French  some  objections  that  I 
could  not  understand,  and  in  my  poor  French  could  not  per- 
suade him  out  of,  the  point  being  apparently  that  we  ought  not 
to  have  stopped  on  our  through  tickets  without  some  memoran- 
dum from  the  conductor.  In  the  emergency  I  thought  of  my 
Hebrew  friend,  who  was  near,  and  applied  to  him.  He  went 
with  me  to  the  gate-keeper  and  before  he  had  hardly  spoken 
the  gate  was  opened  and  \ve  were  let  in  with  a  very  deferential 


92  REMINISCENCES. 

bow  from  the  gate  man.  I  turned  and  thanked  the  Hebrew 
gentleman  and  we  passed  in.  While  we  were  waiting  in  the  sta- 
tion for  the  train  to  come  along  a  lady,  who  had  witnessed  the 
proceeding,  said  to  my  lady  companion,  "  Do  you  know  who 
that  gentleman  is  who  got  you  in  ?  "  She  said  she  did  not. 
"  Why  (said  she),  that  is  the  great  Rothschild."  So  I  had  had, 
to  negotiate  my  little  matter  with  the  gate-keeper,  the  great 
financier  to  whom  kings  and  emperors  go  in  their  straits. 


REV.  DR.  BURTON. 

It  has  been  a  great  felicity  of  my  life  to  have  known  Nathan- 
iel J.  Burton.  He  was  my  pastor  at  Hartford  for  many  years, 
and  during  most  of  that  time  I  was  one  of  his  deacons.  I  have 
never  in  my  life  heard  the  English  language  used  with  such 
elegance  and  power.  His  vocabulary  was  so  full  and  rich  that 
he  could  take  his  choice  as  he  wrote  of  all  the  available  words 
of  the  language,  and  never  failed  to  use  that  word  which,  above 
every  other,  even  in  the  finest  shades  of  meaning,  fitted  his  pur- 
-pose.  He  was  a  man  of  a  strong,  deep  nature,  inclined  to  self- 
.  depreciation,  and  sometimes  to  depression,  but  wonderfully 
.open  to  inspiration,  and  rising  under  it  to  the  highest  range 
,of  thought  and  speech.  He  was  also  one  of  the  most  delight- 
ful of  companions,  with  a  marvelous  faculty  of  narration  and 
characterization.  He  and  his  wife  were  members  of  our 
family  for  nearly  two  years.  During  this  time  we  had  at  table 
a  perpetual  flow  of  humor,  to  which  Mrs.  Burton  contributed, 
she  being  one  of  the  brightest  and  wittiest  of  women.  He  was 
especially  felicitous  in  narrating  his  own  experiences  and 
observations,  but  never  was  a  mere  story-teller.  That  part  of 
our  table  or  evening  entertainment  usually  and  unfortunately 
fell  to  me;  but  his  contribution  as  a  hearty  laugher  did  more 
£or  the  general  amusement  than  any  story-telling  could  do, 
for  it  was  of  that  infectious  kind  that  invariably  put  the  table  in 
,-a  roar.  Any  one  coming  in  while  he  was  in  a  hearty  laugh 
would  find  himself  laughing  with  us  in  spite  of  himself,  with- 
out having  any  idea  what  we  were  laughing  at.  Nothing 
could  exceed  the  hilarious  times  that  we  had  together.  A 
stranger,  certainly  a  sanctimonious  one,  would  have  had  his 
doubts  whether  such  an  inclination  to  hilarity  was  consistent 


REV.   DR.   BURTON. 


93 


with  the  deep,  earnest  religious  thought  and  feeling  that  after 
all  was  the  predominating  feature  of  his  life,  and  I  trust  was 
not  wholly  wanting  in  mine.  I  can  see  no  such  inconsistency. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  greatest  tenderness  of  heart,  and  was 
especially  fond  of  little  children.  He  could  hardly  pass  a 
baby  wagon  in  the  street  without  stopping  to  look  at  the 
baby  and  often  to  talk  to  it.  His  manner  at  baptisms  and  at 
the  funerals  of  little  children  seemed  like  the  infinite  tenderness 
of  the  divine  heart. 

In  the  spring  of  1867  I  went  to  Florida  with  him,  going  by 
a  sailing  vessel  to  Savannah  and  returning  by  a  steamer  from 
Charleston.  We  were  gone  about  six  weeks,  and  in  an  account 
of  his  tour,  which  he  gave  his  people  at  an  evening  meeting, 
he  spoke  of  it  as  the  pleasantest  tour  he  had  ever  taken.  After- 
wards, in  1872,  we  traveled  in  Europe  together  for  several 
months.  Nothing  could  exceed  his  agreeableness  as  a  travel- 
ing companion.  He  took  in  the  sentiment  of  things  every- 
where and  was  filled  with  it  —  the  vastness  and  restlessness 
of  the  ocean,  the  grandeur  of  the  Alps,  the  picturesque  quaint- 
ness  of  old  English  streets  and  by-ways,  their  historical  asso- 
ciations, and  the  places  where  great  events  had  occurred,  es- 
pecially great  events  of  patriotism  and  courage  and  self- 
sacrifice.  I  never  knew  a  man  more  easily  and  profoundly 
affected  by  these  things,  and  he  was  constantly  increasing  by 
them  his  rich  store  of  material  for  his  sermons  and  addresses. 
He  was  very  sensitive  to  the  moods  of  nature  and  nobody  had 
such  an  ear  for  its  voices.  I  have  known  him  to  sit  an  hour 
in  the  woods  with  a  friend,  while  neither  spoke  to  the  other, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  hour  say  —  "  What  a  good  time  we  have 
had." 

With  all  his  wonderful  power  of  speech  and  writing,  there 
was  yet  in  him  a  degree  of  inertia  that  constantly  made  him 
put  off  the  preparation  of  his  public  addresses  until  he  felt  the 
irresistible  pressure  of  an  absolute  necessity,  and  then  he 
would  arouse  himself  and  astonish  his  friends  by  his  power  of 
execution.  This  is  really  a  not  uncommon  quality  of  genius. 
When  passing  a  pleasant  evening  with  congenial  friends  (and 
nobody  enjoyed  such  occasions  more),  he  seemed  unwilling 
to  break  away,  and,  if  left  to  himself,  would  chat  for  half  the 
night,  forgetful  of  parochial  and  pulpit  claims  upon  him,  and 
with  full  knowledge  that  he  must  pay  for  the  luxury  by  super- 


94 


REMINISCENCES. 


human  effort  by  and  by.  Some  of  his  greatest  successes  were 
accomplished  under  such  a  strain,  when  the  case  seemed  al- 
most a  desperate  one.  Many  illustrations  of  this  habit  and 
quality  could  be  given,  but  a  single  one  will  suffice.  At  the 
Yale  College  commencement  in  1870,  he  was  appointed  by 
the  General  Association  of  Connecticut  to  deliver  at  the  next 
commencement  the  sermon  known  as  the  Concio  ad  Clcnun, 
the  subject,  always  prescribed,  being  in  this  case  some  branch 
of  the  Sabbath  question.  Another  clergyman  was,  in  ac- 
cordance with'  custom,  appointed  as  his  substitute.  The  fol- 
lowing college  year  had  nearly  reached  its  end  and  the  next 
commencement  was  less  than  two  weeks  off,  and  he  had  not 
put  pen  to  paper  in  the  preparation  of  his  expected  sermon. 
When  now  he  saw  the  time  for  its  delivery  so  near  at  hand,  he 
felt  as  if  he  could  not  undertake  to  write  it,  and  sent  a  letter 
to  the  secretary  of  the  association  at  New  Haven,  requesting 
him  to  notify  his  substitute  of  the  fact.  The  secretary  wrote 
him  that  it  would  not  do  at  so  late  an  hour  to  throw  the  duty 
on  his  substitute,  and  that  they  must  rely  on  him  for  it. 
This  was  while  he  was  a  member  of  our  family,  and  my  wife 
and  I  had  done  what  we  could  to  persuade  him  to  undertake 
it,  but  without  success.  We  pressed  him  all  the  harder  on  the 
receipt  of  the  secretary's  letter,  but  it  got  to  be  the  Friday 
night  before  the  Monday  evening,  when  the  sermon  was  to  be 
delivered,  and  he  had  not  yet  begun  upon  it.  At  last  he  said 
that  if  we  would  get  a  supply  for  his  pulpit  the  following  Sun- 
day he  would  devote  that  day  to  writing  it.  My  wife  said  at 
once  that  she  would  set  out  the  next  morning  to  find  a  supply. 
She  took  a  carriage  Saturday  morning,  and,  before  noon,  came 
back  with  the  report  that  she  had  secured  two  clergymen  for 
the  purpose.  Still  Mr.  Burton  did  not  feel  in  the  spirit  of 
work,  and  did  not  begin  till  Sunday  morning.  He  then  sat 
down  to  it  and  wrote  all  day.  The  next  day  (Monday)  he 
wrote  till  noon,  then  took  the  train  to  New  Haven,  and  all 
the  afternoon  wrote  in  his  room  at  the  hotel ;  and  in  the  even- 
ing he  delivered  a  magnificent  discourse,  before  a  full  house 
of  clergymen,  who  gathered  around  him  at  the  close  of  the 
services  to  tell  him  of  their  admiration.  Among  others,  Rev. 
Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  hurried  up  and  said,  "  Why,  Burton,  where 
have  you  been  all  these  years,  that  we  haven't  known  more 
about  you? "  It  was  spoken  of  throughout  the  state  as  a 


REV.   DR.   BURTON. 


95 


wonderful  performance.  It  was  long,  and  easily  made  two 
sermons,  which  he  afterwards  delivered  in  his  own  pulpit. 

I  have  called  him  Mr.  Burton  up  to  this  point.  He,  soon 
after,  received  a  doctorate  of  divinity  from  some  college,  I 
forget  what  one.  No  degree  was  ever  more  worthily  de- 
stowed. 

I  have  spoken  of  his  remarkable  vocabulary  and  of  the  ele- 
gance and  power  of  his  language.  I  cannot  forbear  to  give 
my  readers  a  specimen  of  it  by  a  brief  extract  from  his  address 
on  the  death  of  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon,  a  mighty  man  among 
the  Congregational  clergy  of  Connecticut.  It  was  delivered 
before  the  General  Association  in  1882,  and  is  to  be  found  in 
the  published  volume  of  Dr.  Burton's  "  Yale  Lectures  and 
other  Writings,"  at  page  441.  It  is  as  follows: 

It  has  been  said  that  falling  in  love  amounts  to  a  liberal  education, 
and  I  put  it  down,  therefore,  as  the  first  thing  wherein  I  was  profoundly 
beholden  to  this  man,  that  he  furnished  me  an  object  on  which  to 
pour  myself  forth  in  a  practically  unlimited  way.  In  my  judgment  the 
principal  thing  in  the  world  is  its  men  and  its  women.  Great  and  dear  is 
this  green  month  of  June  ;  great  the  overarch  of  heavenly  blue  ;  great 
'  the  careering  night  with  its  embellishment  of  stars ;  great  and  solemn  the 
outstretch  of  astronomic  spaces  ;  great,  and  also  bewitching,  that  ever- 
lasting march  and  miscellany  of  phenomena  which  constitutes  our 
environment  here.  Nevertheless,  let  the  heart  speak,  and  the  greatest 
interest  in  God's  whole  round  of  fascinations  is  the  people.  Multitudes 
of  them  I  have  never  gotten  hold  of  in  any  visible  way ;  but  I  take  a 
sense  of  them  stretching  away  beyond  my  horizon,  and  I  have  a  feeling 
of  their  company  present  and  to  come.  Many  of  them  to  whom  I  do 
have  access  are  not  superfinely  made  up,  but,  then,  no  more  am  I ;  so 
that  they  and  I  have  a  good  deal  of  mutuality,  and  I  humbly  look  for 
more  ;  but  among  the  many  of  all  sorts  who  constitute  the  grand  total  of 
mankind,  there  emerges  now  and  then  some  bulky  personage, — bulky 
and  balanced  and  supreme,  and  full  of  the  very  energy  of  God,  in  whom 
is  summed  and  typified  the  scattered  potentialites  of  man  ;  so  that  the 
rest  of  us  spontaneously  take  him  up  and  point  to  him,  saying  :  "  There 
we  are  ;  there  play  our  thoughts,  orderly  and  beautiful ;  there  moves  our 
majesty;  there  shine  we  at  our  best;  there  is  told  forth  the  ultimate 
stature  of  man  on  earth."  .  .  . 

We  look  to  young  men  for  these  hero-worshipers  in  the  main,  but 
a  number  of  times  in  my  later  years  I  have  found  myself  caught  in  the 
same  gracious  fury  ;  and  I  have  always  been  grateful  to  Dr.  Bacon  that 
he  was  born  of  such  a  sire,  and  so  diligently  amplified  himself  as  his 
many  years  went  on,  and  built  himself  up  so  four-square,  proportionate, 


96  REMINISCENCES. 

and  solid  in  character,  and,  withal,  made  so  few  mistakes,  that  I  cotild 
dwell  upon  him  in  my  heart  with  more  than  contentment,  could  fire  up 
over  him  on  occasion  in  a  total  conflagration  of  good  feeling,  and  can 
contemplate  him  now  in  his  completed  life  as  one  looks  back  to  some  old- 
time  masterpiece,  some  picture,  some  poem,  some  cathedral,  some  ora- 
torio. Oratorio  I  say,  for  a  well-rounded  and  true  life  is  really  a  musical 
product ;  it  touches  us  as  melodies  touch  us  ;  it  has  in  it  the  secret  law  of 
harmonies  ;  it  coasts  the  infinite,  as  all  great  music  does  ;  it  takes  di- 
verse ranges  of  expression,  and  it  is  an  organized  unit  of  life  most  im- 
pressive and  delightful  to  the  beholders. 

Dr.  Burton  spent  a  year  in  Europe  in  1868  and  1869.  While 
abroad  he  wrote  a  series  of  letters  to  one  of  our  Hartford 
papers,  which  were  read  with  great  interest  by  his  many 
friends,  and  extracts  from  which  were  printed  in  the  volume 
of  his  "  Yale  Lectures  and  other  Writings,"  from  which  I  have 
already  quoted.  I  cannot  give  a  better  idea  of  his  pleasant 
style  of  narration,  with  pen  or  tongue,  than  by  inserting  a 
paragraph  from  one  of  those  letters  telling  of  a  night  that  he 
spent  with  a  Catholic  priest  at  Zermatt  on  the  Swiss  mountains. 
He  had  walked  alone  from  Visp  to  Zermatt,  about  twelve  miles. 
He  seems,  as  he  entered  Zermatt,  to  have  had  the  company  of 
a  German,  who  could  talk  a  little  English,  or  to  have  fallen  in 
with  him  there.  It  was  now  Saturday  evening  in  the  month 
of  October. 

Arriving  at  Zermatt  just  at  nightfall,  I  found  the  two  hotels  closed 
and  nailed  up  for  the  season,  and  the  rest  of  Zermatt  nothing  but  log 
huts  and  the  like,  where  cows  hold  the  parlors  and  spare  rooms  and  a 
man  holds  up  where  he  can.  It  was  Saturday  night,  too,  and  my  Ger- 
man kindly  informed  me  (for  German  is  the  language  of  that  region)  that 
no  one  in  the  place  spoke  English  ;  and  I  knew  to  a  certainty  that  I  did 
not  speak  German.  So  much  for  traveling  in  the  Alps  in  October.  How- 
ever, under  a  certain  inspiration,  I  happened  to  think  of  the  Catholic 
priest,  and  remembering  that  that  class  do  not  ordinarily  have  a  very 
numerous  wife  and  family,  so  that  their  homes  are  not  very  overrunning, 
and  remembering  with  what  care  they  hunt  a  soul  among  the  mountains, 
I  considered  it  not  unlikely  that  the  Zermatt  father  would  take  me  in  for 
a  single  night.  So  I  said  "  Priest"  to  my  German,  and  he  led  the  way 
to  the  rectory,  and  went  in  and  told  my  story,  I  following  and  standing 
in  mute  appeal  while  he  did  it.  Whether  it  was  his  German  or  my  face, 
or  a  special  providence,  I  do  not  certainly  know  ;  but  the  round-faced 
good  father  motioned  to  me  with  smiles  that  he  would  accept  me,  and  I 
then  motioned  with  smiles  that  I  would  accept  him.  So  I  sat  down,  and 


REV,   DR.   BURTON. 


97 


after  a  considerable  period  of  silence,  his  silence  being  conducted  in  Ger- 
man and  mine  in  English,  I  took  from  my  pocket  three  little  lexicons 
(German,  French,  and  English),  which  I  always  carry  with  me  in  these 
foreign  countries,  and  tumbled  them  down  before  him  in  hopes  that  he 
would  find  something  in  them  that  he  could  say.  After  a  few  minutes' 
search  he  looked  hard  at  me  and  said :  "  Coffee  ? "  I  shook  my  head  for 
"  No."  In  the  course  of  five  minutes  more  of  search,  he  faced  me  again 
and  said  :  "  Eggs  ? "  I  said  "  No,"  and  then  proceeded  to  shake  my  head 
steadily  for  the  next  three  minutes,  which  he  soon  understood  to  signify 
that  I  did  not  want  anything  at  all.  So  that  was  settled.  Pretty  soon, 
and  after  a  little  skirmishing,  I  pointed  to  myself  and  said,  "  Priest." 
He  evidently  thought  I  lied.  Then  I  pointed  to  myself  and  said, 
"  American  priest"  ;  but  he  looked  me  over,  and  didn't  find  the  proper 
ear-marks  of  any  sort  of  priest,  and  was  not  a  bit  moved  by  what  I  had 
said.  He  knew  I  was  an  impostor.  His  face  showed  that  that  was  his 
opinion  of  me.  It  was  unfortunate  that  I  had  used  the  word  "priest" 
perhaps.  At  last  I  raised  my  voice,  pointed  to  myself  the  third  time, 
and  said,  "  Protestant  priest"  ;  and  instantly  he  sprang  to  his  feet  and 
took  my  hand,  and  shook  it  in  a  prolonged  and  cordial  manner.  We  had 
now  reached  open  sailing  ;  so  I  took  out  my  passport,  written  in  French, 
which  he  could  understand,  and  gave  it  to  him,  and  thus  he  got  my  name 
and  exact  place  of  residence,  and  a  general  assurance  that  I  amounted  to 
something.  From  that  we  went  on  the  whole  evening  talking  through 
the  lexicon,  and  gesturing  and  laughing  when  we  failed  altogether  to 
understand  each  other,  his  housekeeper,  a  powerful  woman,  pausing 
occasionally  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  as  she  passed  through  to  witness 
the  show.  At  last  I  started  for  bed,  assuring  him  by  pointing  to  the 
figure  6  on  my  watch  that  I  should  leave  for  St.  Nikolaus  at  that  hour 
in  the  morning,  and  saying  to  him  that  he  would  be  in  bed  by  pointing  to 
his  bed  standing  there  in  the  room,  and  laying  down  my  head  in  my  hand 
and  shutting  my  eyes.  And  as  I  thought  I  might  not  see  him  in  the 
morning,  I  filled  my  hand  with  coin  and  extended  it  to  him  open,  that  he 
might  take  what  he  liked.  He  hesitated,  and  took  a  single  piece.  But  I 
still  held  it  out,  dnd  he  took  one  more.  Then  I  shut  it,  thinking  the  fun 
had  gone  far  enough,  —  just  far  enough.  I  slept  well  enough  in  his  little 
house,  all  browned  by  the  weather,  with  brown  boards  inside,  and  great 
stones  on  the  roof,  and  the  fairest  of  white  curtains  to  keep  Matterhorn 
and  the  rest  of  them  from  looking  right  into  my  face  while  I  was  asleep  ; 
and  in  the  early  morning,  after  giving  him  my  card  and  taking  his,  I  put 
out  into  the  cold  and  windy  valley,  he  following  me  to  the  gate  with  his 
prayer-book  in  his  hand  (as  his  little  church  in  the  yard  was  already  call- 
ing him  and  his  villagers  to  early  prayer),  and  bidding  me  adieu  several 
times  over  ;  I  liking  him,  and  he,  I  hope,  liking  me  ;  I  having  testified  of 
my  confidence  in  him  by  appealing  to  him  in  my  necessity,  and  he  hav- 


98  REMINISCENCES. 

ing  signified  his  confidence  in  me  by  opening  to  me  his  doors;  he  thinking 
me  a  poor  heretic,  I  suppose,  and  I  thinking  him  one,  though  I  thought 
he  was  a  good-looking  one,  and  did  not  care  a  brass  farthing,  in  fact, 
whether  he  was  a  heretic  or  not  just  at  the  moment  when  I  felt  the 
pressure  of  his  kindly  hand  in  farewell,  and  as  I  took  a  final  look  at 
the  chimney  of  his  old  house  as  I  went  over  the  hill.  I'm  afraid  the 
fellow  will  get  into  heaven  in  spite  of  his  Catholicism  ;  and  Zermatt,  be- 
ing fifty-five  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  he  is  about  half-way 
there  now.  The  other  half  will  be  the  tug  for  him;  but  he'll  make  it,  I'm 
inclined  to  think. 

Mr.  Burton  died  on  the  I3th  day  of  October,  1887,  in  the 
62d  year  of  his  age.  He  has  left  no  mourner,  outside  of  his 
immediate  family,  to  whom  his  death  brought  a  greater  be- 
reavement and  a  more  abiding  sorrow  than  it  brought  to  me. 

I  find  in  the  volume  of  his  addresses  the  following  frag- 
ment, with  no  explanation  of  the  occasion  of  its  being  written 
or  in  what  connection.  I  take  it  to  be  a  soliloquy  of  some  in- 
tense mood  in  his  later  years.  It  makes  a  fitting  conclusion 
of  this  notice  of  my  deep-souled  friend. 

Heaven  is  rest  and  joy,  and  it  requires  the  heart  to  interpret  that  and 
grasp  its  immeasurable  meaning.  Oh  !  when  I  am  tired;  when  my  body 
is  unstrung  and  my  soul  is  jaded,  and  my  hopes  flag  and  my  ambitions 
flicker  in  their  socket ;  when  the  night  does  not  refresh  me,  and  the 
morning  does  not  cheer  me  ;  when  the  song  of  birds  is  heavy  music, 
and  all  the  trees  of  the  field  seem  chastened,  and  the  brooks  are  weary 
and  creep  and  gurgle  and  lament ;  when  the  beauty  of  women  is  vanity 
to  my  eyes,  and  I  can  see  no  dignity  in  the  faces  of  men  ;  when  the 
friends  of  my  youth  are  scattered  and  dead,  and  my  eyes  are  evermore 
striving  to  look  beyond  the  distant  horizon  as  for  some  country  far  away ; 
when  long-gone  forms  crowd  my  memory,  —  the  young,  the  old,  the 
beautiful,  the  reverend  ;  when  my  sympathies  are  pensive  and  retro- 
spective, and  I  live  with  the  dead  whom  I  knew  more  than  with  the 
living  whom  I  know  ;  when  the  winds  complain  and  sob  at  my  casement 
all  the  day  ;  when  the  love  and  the  hate,  and  the  efforts  and  delights  of 
men  seem  small  and  empty,  — oh  !  when  I  am  tired,  and  sad,  and  worn 
out,  I  know  what  is  intended  by  the  promise  of  rest  and  joy  in  heaven. 


CAPT.   BAKER. 


CAPT.   BAKER. 


99 


In  the  early  summer  of  1867  Rev.  Dr.  Burton  and  I  fell  in 
with  Capt.  Obed  Baker,  who  was  master  of  a  bark  in  which  we 
sailed  from  New  York  to  Savannah.  Dr.  Burton,  as  I  have 
stated  in  the  last  chapter,  was  my  pastor,  and  we  were  very  inj 
timate  friends.  After  his  death,  in  the  fall  of  1887,  I  wrote 
for  one  of  our  Hartford  papers  an  account  of  our  voyage  with 
Capt.  Baker,  and  of  my  later  acquaintance  with  him.  The 
whole  was  a  very  pleasant  experience  on  my  part,  and  I  can 
not  do  better  than  insert  entire  the  article  as  it  appeared. 

About  twenty  years  ago  Dr.  Burton  and  the  writer  went  to  Florida 
together,  being  gone  about  six  weeks.  We  went  by  sailing-ship  from 
New  York  to  Savannah,  being  ten  days  on  the  passage,  it  being  a  part  of 
our  object  to  have  the  voyage.  The  captain  of  the  vessel  was  a  Cape 
Cod  man,  about  forty-five  years  old,  who  had  followed  the  sea  from  his 
boyhood,  and  was  now  a  fine  specimen  of  a  thorough  sailor.  He  had  at 
first  been  unwilling  to  take  us,  as  he  did  not  usually  carry  passengers, 
and  doubted  whether  he  could  make  us  comfortable  ;  but  he  yielded  to 
our  urging,  and  we  found  our  accommodations  very  satisfactory.  The 
captain  was  very  attentive  to  us.  He  was  fond  of  telling  stories  and 
of  hearing  them,  and  we  spent  many  hours  with  him  in  that  beguiling 
occupation.  He  held  perfect  command  of  his  crew  without  ever  being 
boisterous,  and,  though  not  at  all  a  religious  man,  he  was  free  from  the 
habit  of  profanity  that  is  so  common  among  seamen.  We  judged  him 
to  be  a  man  of  respectable  life,  and  he  was  greatly  attached  to  his  wife 
and  children,  whose  photographs  he  took  much  pleasure  in  showing  us. 

The  second  day  out  we  suggested  to  the  captain  that,  as  one  of  us 
was  a  clergyman  and  the  other  a  deacon,  we  have  a  blessing  asked  at 
our  meals.  He  readily  acceded  to  it.  There  were  four  of  us  at  table, — the 
captain  and  mate,  and  Mr.  Burton  and  myself,  we  being  the  only  pas- 
sengers. Each  meal  for  the  rest  of  the  voyage  was  prefaced  by  a  "  grace." 
Our  third  day  out  was  Sunday,  and  we  proposed  to  the  captain  that  we 
have  a  religious  service  on  the  quarter  deck,  to  which  the  crew  should  be 
invited.  He  cheerfully  acquiesced.  So  the  crew  was  called  aft,  and  the 
captain  and  mate  attended  with  them.  Mr.  Burton  read  a  chapter  in 
the  Bible  and  made  a  prayer,  and  I  then  gave  the  sailors  a  fifteen-min- 
utes' talk.  I  had  in  my  youth  spent  nearly  two  years  upon  the  ocean,  and 
was  able  to  talk  to  them  in  the  vernacular  of  the  sea.  The  second  Sun- 
day we  had  a  like  service. 

After  reaching  Savannah  we  spent  two  days  on  shore,  and  before  we 
left  went  back  to  the  vessel  to  take  leave  of  the  captain,  to  whom  we  had 
become  really  attached.  In  our  talk  with  him  he  said  that  he  had  enjoyed 


100  REMINISCENCES. 

our  company  greatly,  and  that  if  either  of  us  desired  to  go  with  him  again 
to  any  part  of  the  world  where  he  was  bound,  he  would  be  glad  to  take 
us  for  the  mere  cost  of  our  board.  We,  in  closing,  told  him  of  the  great 
interest  we  felt  in  him,  and  appealed  to  him,  with  an  earnestness  that 
came  from  the  depths  of  our  hearts,  to  become  a  religious  man.  He 
thanked  us  for  our  kindly  interest,  but  I  could  not  see  that  much  im- 
pression was  made  upon  him. 

I  did  not  see  the  captain  again  for  two  years  or  more,  when  I  met  him 
in  the  street  in  New  York.  He  seemed  greatly  pleased  to  meet  me,  in- 
quired after  Mr.  Burton,  and  told  me  he  was  having  a  new  bark  built,  of 
which  he  was  to  own  a  share,  and  in  which  he  had  had  two  commodious 
state-rooms  constructed  for  passengers  that  would  always  be  open  to  us. 
He  added  that  they  should  probably  have  to  name  the  vessel  after  a  per- 
son who  had  taken  the  largest  share  in  it ;  but  that,  if  he  did  not  insist 
upon  it,  he  should  call  it  the  "  N.  J.  Burton."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
vessel  had  finally  to  take  the  name  of  the  principal  owner. 

I  heard  nothing  more  of  our  captain  until  three  or  four  years  later, 
when,  on  inquiring  at  the  shipping  office  in  New  York  where  he  always 
reported,  I  learned  that,  in  the  general  collapse  of  our  shipping  interests, 
he  had  lost  all  he  had,  that  the  vessel  had  been  sold  to  pay  its  debts,  and 
that  he  had  gone  back  to  his  home  on  Cape  Cod.  I  at  once  wrote  him 
there,  and  got  the  following  reply  : 

"DEAR  FRIEND  HOOKER: — Yours  is  at  hand.  I  was  glad  to  hear 
from  you.  I  am  happy  to  say  that  I  am  in  good  health.  I  should  be 
very  glad  to  see  you  at  any  time  you  can  make  it  convenient  to  come  this 
way.  I  have  thought  of  our  passage  often,  and  the  agreeable  company 
I  had  with  me.  Please  give  my  love  to  Mr.  Burton.  If  I  ever  come  that 
way  I  shall  take  particular  pains  to  see  him  and  hear  him  preach. 

"  In  relation  to  my  worldly  affairs  :  I  went  to  sea  until  I  lost  all  I 
had,  and  more  than  all  I  owned,  as  I  was  responsible  for  the  gain  or  loss 
on  one-half  of  the  bark.  The  interest  and  the  insurance,  with  the  dull 
times  for  vessels,  ran  me  out.  I  came  home  and  settled  up  my  affairs, 
and  have  nothing.  I  shall  be  forced  to  go  to  sea  again  if  I  can  get  a 
vessel,  which  it  is  not  easy  to  get  without  money  to  buy  an  interest. 

"  However,  I  do  not  complain.  Before  I  left  the  sea,  about  two- 
thirds  the  way  across  the  Atlantic  bound  to  Gibraltar,  —  the  time  and 
place  I  never  shall  forget,  —  I  found  a  rich  Father,  the  owner  of  the  cat- 
tle on  a  thousand  hills.  Through  the  riches  of  His  grace  I  was  led  to 
the  only  true  source  of  peace  and  happiness,  in  being  born  again  through 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  to  be  washed  from  all  sin  by  the  shedding  of  His 
blood.  And  God  in  His  love  has  kept  me  at  the  cross  from  that  time  to 
this,  for  my  own  good  and  His  glory.  You  know  all  I  would  say  on  this 
subject.  It  is  a  story  that  never  can  be  told  in  this  world. 

"  Please  write  me  when  you  get  this. 

"  Yours,  as  ever,  OBED  BAKER." 

I  wrote  him  at  once,  and  promised  to  go  and  see  him.  The  next 
summer  I  went  to  his  Cape  Cod  home,  and  found  him  full  of  faith  and 
peace.  I  stayed  with  him  over  night  in  his  little  cottage,  which  a  sav- 
ings bank  was  to  take  possession  of  in  a  few  days  under  a  mortgage 


THE  DANSVILLE  SANATORIUM.  IQI 

which  he  had  no  means  of  paying.  He  had  borrowed  the  money  to 
put  into  the  vessel  he  had  last  commanded.  I  went  almost  wholly  to 
hear  him  tell  the  story  of  his  religious  experience.  It  was  a  very  interest- 
ing one.  His  disgust  at  a  profane  and  irreligious  passenger,  the  only 
one  he  had,  drove  him  to  reflection  as  to  his  own  condition,  and  in  the 
solitude  of  his  state-room,  and  the  wider  solitude  of  the  ocean,  he  prayed 
for  light  and  guidance,  and  they  were  given  him. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  that  the  captain's  acquaintance  with  us  had 
any  determining  influence  upon  his  life.  I  have  said  that  he  was  fond  of 
his  family  ;  his  wife  was  a  pious  Methodist.  Many  influences  combine 
to  produce  such  results.  I  am  thankful  if  we  contributed  even  a  mite 
towards  this  one. 

The  captain  never  went  to  sea  again.  Our  shipping  interests  were 
too  depressed  to  offer  him  a  place,  and  he  had  no  money  to  buy  one.  He 
was  unfortunate,  too,  in  having  had  no  experience  in  work  ashore,  except 
perhaps  in  some  of  those  callings  that  are  connected  with  shipping,  and 
which  then  shared  the  depression  of  the  latter.  He  died  not  long  after, 
but  died  in  unabated  faith  and  peace. 

Great  souls  I  have  no  doubt  pressed  around  Dr.  Burton  as  he  entered 
the  spirit  world  ;  and  when  they  had  had  ample  time  for  their  greeting, 
I  feel  sure  that  one  modest,  unassuming,  but  delighted  spirit  came  up, 
and  gave  him  a  tearful  and  hearty  welcome,  and  a  sailor's  grip  of  the 
hand. 

THE  DANSVILLE  SANATORIUM. 

I  spent  the  summer  of  1880  in  Dr.  Jackson's  Cure  at  Dans- 
ville,  in  the  state  of  New  York.  I  needed  rest  and  renovation, 
and  found  them  there.  I  have  rarely  enjoyed  a  summer  more. 
It  was  one  of  absolute  idleness,  which  had  generally  been  in- 
tolerable to  me,  and  of  very  great  social  enjoyment,  the  other 
patients  being  very  largely  people  of  education  and  intelli- 
gence, and  often  clergymen  and  other  professional  men,  and 
many  among  the  women  being  teachers.  There  was  an  utter 
absence  of  all  affectation  or  show,  and  we  lived  together  in  a 
very  simple  and  unceremonious,  yet  very  decorous  way.  Dr. 
Jackson,  who  started  the  establishment  and  had  conducted  it 
for  many  years,  had  had  great  success  in  dealing  with  the 
cases  that  came  to  him.  He  gave  no  medicine,  but  relied 
wholly  on  diet,  baths,  and  massage.  He  was  now  quite  old, 
and  was  just  about  to  give  up  the  care  of  the  establishment 
to  his  son,  the  present  Dr.  Jackson,  who,  with  his  wife,  a 
well-educated  and  experienced  physician,  and  some  other 


102  REMINISCENCES. 

medical  aid,  is  now  carrying  it  on.  There  was  at  this  time  a 
magazine,  devoted  to  the  matter  of  health,  and  called  ''  The 
Laws  of  Life,"  published  monthly  by  the  institution,  which 
had  a  large  list  of  subscribers,  made  up  mainly  of  old  patients 
of  the  institution.  The  main  building  was  three  stories  high, 
and  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  length,  and  had  now 
stood  many  years.  Not  far  from  it  and  connected  with  it  by  a 
covered  passway,  stood  a  modern  building  of  considerable 
size,  which  contained  a  large  hall,  in  which  lectures  were  de- 
livered and  public  meetings  held,  and  where  a  chaplain,  kept 
by  the  institution,  preached  every  Sunday,  or  procured  some 
clerical  patient  to  preach.  A  prayer-meeting  was  held  there 
every  Thursday  afternoon,  and  once  a  month  a  meeting  of  all 
the  patients,  in  what  was  called  a  "  Health  Convention," 
at  which  one  and  another  told  of  his  progress  in  health,  the 
speeches  frequently  running  into  the  humorous  and  giving  us 
generally  a  very  entertaining  hour.  At  one  of  these  conven- 
tions a  refined  young  lady  from  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  told  how  she 
came  two  years  before  completely  broken  down  in  health  from 
fashionable  living,  and  had  now  grown  to  be  the  vigorous 
woman  which  we  saw  her  to  be.  She  had  not  been  home  dur- 
ing the  two  years,  and  told  us  how  her  sisters  would  probably 
turn  her  around  and  comment  sarcastically  on  her  large  waist. 
But  she  said  she  was  glad  it  was  so  large  in  spite  of  their 
criticism.  When  she  sat  down  I  made  a  short  speech,  in  the 
course  of  which  I  begged  our  friend  who  had  just  spoken  to 
remember  for  her  comfort  that  it  was  Judas  Iscariot  who  said, 
"Wherefore  is  this  great  waste?"  The  family  met  every 
morning  for  family  prayers,  which  were  attended  by  nearly 
all  the  patients,  and  were  very  pleasantly  conducted,  all  who 
felt  disposed  taking  their  turn  in  presiding.  The  patients 
generally  were  people  of  moderate  means,  earning  their  liv- 
ing in  the  world,  and  were  almost  all  progressive  thinkers  and 
earnest  in  moral  purpose.  No  fashionable  people  came  there, 
none  of  the  sort  that  frequent  Newport  and  Saratoga,  and 
make  an  offensive  show  of  their  money  and  pride;  but  it  was 
a  society  that  I  enjoyed  beyond  any  other  that  I  had  met  with 
in  any  place  of  public  resort.  I  ought  to  state  that  many  old 
patients,  now  in  health,  came  back  to  enjoy  a  summer's  rest 
there,  while  often  with  an  invalid  came  a  husband,  or  a  wife, 


THE  DANSVILLE  SANATORIUM. 


103 


or  a  daughter,  as  a  companion,  making  a  large  proportion  of 
our  family  mere  summer  visitors,  but  of  a  most  congenial  sort. 
I  made  here  some  friendships,  especially  among  women  whom 
I  met  there,  that  I  shall  always  cherish. 

Two  years  after  I  left  the  institution,  the  main  building, 
which,  as  I  have  said,  was  built  of  wood  and  quite  old,  was 
burned  to  the  ground,  the  occupants  all  escaping,  but  very 
little  of  value  being  saved.  By  great  effort  Liberty  Hall  was 
saved,  and  a  meeting  was  the  same  day  held  in  it,  in  which  the 
old  doctor  made  a  ringing  speech,  declaring  that  the  Cure 
would  certainly  rise  out  of  the  ruins  in  new  beauty  and  strength. 
Notice  of  the  fire  was  published  far  and  wide,  in  some  of  which 
the  familiar  term  applied  to  such  a  fire,  "  gone  up,"  was  used. 
I  at  once  wrote  the  following  verses  and  sent  them  to  Dr.  Jack- 
son, and  they  were  printed  in  the  next  number  of  the  "  Laws 
of  Life,"  which  was  devoted  to  an  account  of  the  fire  and  to 
friendly  communications  received  from  old  friends  of  the  in- 
stitution. They  were  as  follows: 

GONE  UP,  JUNE  26,  1882. 

"  Gone  up,"  dear  old  Cure,  in  the  clutches  dire 

Of  the  fiery  dragon  ; 
As  Elijah  went  up  with  his  steeds  of  fire 

And  flame-wrapt  wagon. 

You  had  seen  the  old  Doctor  grow  old  and  retire, 

And  you  must  go  too  ; 
So  you  burned  yourself  up  on  a  funeral  pyre, 

Like  a  widowed  Hindoo. 

Old  home  of  the  best  sanitarian  science  ! 

You  dear  old  rookery  ! 
We  mourn  for  you  gone,  with  your  many  appliance 

For  common  sense  cookery. 

We  mourn  you  for  all  your  dear  old  memories 

Of  a  life  ideal ; 
And  for  all  your  hate  for  nonsensical  flummeries, 

And  things  false  and  unreal. 

But  stands  the  old  hall,  of  free-speaking  fame, 

The  ruins  among  ; 
The  maddened  sweep  of  the  greedy  flame 

Could  not  silence  her  tongue. 


104  REMINISCENCES. 

And  from  her  goes  forth  no  word  of  gloom, 

But  a  trumpet  voice, 
That  declares  the  dry  bones  in  living  bloom 

Shall  again  rejoice. 

For  thou,  dear  old  building,  wert  only  the  shell 

Of  the  grand  old  Cure  ; 

The  child  has  not  breathed  that  shall  hear  its  knell, 
Nor  the  oak  in  the  acorn  begun  to  swell 

That  shall  longer  endure. 

Before  October,  1893,  a  massive  and  capacious  fireproof 
building  of  brick  had  been  erected  in  the  place  of  the  burned 
buildings,  and  the  first  day  of  that  month  was  assigned  for  a 
meeting  of  the  friends  of  the  institution  for  its  dedication. 
The  new  building  was  much  larger  on  the  ground  than  the 
old  one,  was  five  stories  high,  and  was  supplied  with  every 
modern  convenience  for  such  a  cure.  I  attended  the  meeting 
for  its  dedication,  and  read  some  lines  which  I  had  hastily 
prepared,  and  which  I  thought  appropriate  and  reasonably 
entertaining.  They  were  an  address  to  Hygeia,  the  Goddess 
of  Health.  The  meeting  was  largely  attended,  and  many  in- 
teresting and  some  very  entertaining  speeches  were  made. 
I  was  assigned  for  the  late  afternoon,  and  was  immediately 
preceded  by  a  Dr.  Whitaker,  who  spoke  of  the  importance  of 
making  the  institution  a  pre-eminently  Christian  one,  and 
closed  by  declaring  that,  "  We  come  here  to  dedicate  this  new 
building  to  God  and  not  to  the  heathen  Goddess  of  Health." 
My  name  was  called  and  I  arose  to  do  the  very  thing  that  Dr. 
Whitaker  had  just  been  reprobating.  I  stated  the  subject  of 
my  poem  and  prefaced  the  reading  of  it  by  begging  the  au- 
dience to  take  my  heathenism  in  a  Pickwickian  sense,  or  else 
to  remember  that  we  were  in  Liberty  Hall,  where  even  a 
heathen  had  a  right  to  be  heard.  My  lines  were  as  follows: 

To  HYGEIA,  THE  GODDESS  OF  HEALTH. 

Fair  Goddess,  who  on  Eden  once  descended, 

Thou  should'st  thenceforth  with  human  life  have  blended  ; 

But  blundering  Adam  had  a  dreadful  fall, 

That,  spraining  all  his  joints,  has  lamed  us  all. 

And  now  our  lives  are  one  perpetual  moan  ; 


THE   DANSVILLE  SANATORIUM.  105 

Indeed,  we  hear  "  the  whole  creation  groan  "  ; 
Man's  but  a  bundle  of  sore  ills  and  woes, 
All  through,  from  top  of  head  to  tip  of  toes  ; 
His  eyes  are  made  half  useless  by  myopia, 
His  crowded  toes  a  perfect  cornucopia  ; 
His  knees  are  shaky  and  his  back  in  pain, 
His  nose  is  sneezy  and  befogged  his  brain  ; 
His  liver  strikes,  and  takes  a  surly  rest, 
His  stomach  joins  the  strike  and  won't  digest  ; 
His  temper  grows  suspicious  and  splenetic  : 
His  troubled  dreams  are  all  of  woe  prophetic  ; 
His  bloom  of  face  is  half  consumption's  hectic, 
And  at  his  best  he's  but  a  sour  dyspeptic. 
Dreadful  these  woes,  yet  ages  has  he  had  'em, 
On  thy  account,  thou  wretched  father  Adam  ; 
And  Eve's  as  well,  for  she,  thine  own  der/^ative, 
Began  by  breaking  God's  command  prohibitive. 

But  thou,  Hygeia,  hast  great  gifts  for  men, 
And  we  would  woo  thee  back  to  earth  again  ; 
For  thine  abode  this  palace  we  have  reared, 
On  this  fair  hill,  so  long  to  thee  endeared  ; 
Here  where  thy  Prophet  toiled  so  long  and  late, 
His  life  to  thy  high  service  consecrate  ; 
Here  where,  sustained  by  truth  and  iron  will, 
He  fought  for  thee,  and  stands  thy  champion  still. 

All  honor  to  the  brave  and  grand  old  Doctor  ! 

No  pill  inventor,  nor  of  drugs  concocter  ; 

Who  found  his  remedies  in  nature's  wealth, 

And  to  a  code  reduced  the  laws  of  health  ; 

And  made  his  title  as  a  prophet  sure 

By  wonders  wrought,  by  miracles  of  cure  ; 

And  when  wise  ignorance  smiled  and  grew  satirical, 

And  sneered  at  all  his  methods  as  empirical, 

He  only  added  miracle  to  miracle. 

In  this  grand  pile  be  double  honors  blent ; 

Hygeia's  palace  and  his  monument. 

And  where  in  all  the  wide  world  can  be  shown 
A  spot  more  worthy,  for  Hygeia's  throne  ? 
Where  could  her  palace  on  a  lovelier  scene 
Outlook,  than  on  these  meadows  broad  and  green? 
On  what  fair  height  could  its  fine  majesty 
So  well  display  itself  to  charm  the  eye? 
What  hill  e'er  stood  as  guard  o'er  vale  more  sweet  ? 
8 


106  REMINISCENCES. 

What  vale  e'er  knelt  at  nobler  guardian's  feet? 
Not  fairer  fair  Mt.  Ida  her  watch  kept 
Over  old  Troy  that  in  her  shadow  slept ;          » 
Nor  Mt.  Cyllene  o'er  Arcadian  Greece, 
Nor  Athos  o'er  the  .^Egean  Cyclades. 

And  then  these  woods,  all  up  the  ascending  mount, 

With  winding  walks,  and  seats,  and  gushing  fount ; 

Inviting  all  to  take  their  clambering  way 

Into  their  shade  from  out  the  garish  day  ; 

These  woods,  as  lovely  as  a  poet's  dream, 

Worthy  of  Plato  and  his  Academe  ; 

Not  old  Parnassus,  famed  as  Muses'  haunt, 

Had  charms  that  poet's  verse  could  better  vaunt. 

For  thee,  thy  hall,  oh  Goddess,  in  its  pride 

Of  strength  and  beauty,  opes  its  portals  wide  ; 

Here  come  and  for  the  centuries  abide. 

Its  walls  no  storm  can  shake  nor  fire  consume  ; 

Massive,  it  waits  as  for  the  final  doom. 

Here,  as  the  ripened  ages  pass  away, 

Let  earth  be  blessed  by  thy  benignant  sway. 

Banish  the  sins  with  which  the  earth  is  rife, 

And  raise  men  to  a  purer,  nobler  life. 

Breathe  o'er  our  troubled  souls  thine  heavenly  calm, 

Life's  arid  wastes  shade  like  a  shadowing  palm, 

And  for  its  moans,  fill  earth  with  an  exultant  psalm. 

LOOSING  THE   ASS. 

\Yhen  I  removed  to  Hartford  my  wife  and  I  became  mem- 
bers of  the  Fourth  Congregational  Church,  of  which  Rev.  Wil- 
liam W.  Patton  was  pastor.  A  few  years  later,  about  1855, 
a  Congregational  church  which  had  been  organized  in  Chicago 
desired  to  obtain  him  as  its  pastor,  and  sent  a  committee  to  con- 
fer with  him,  and  to  lay  the  matter  before  the  members  of  our 
church.  Congregationalism  had  never  been  established  in 
Chicago,  and  Mr.  Patton  was  regarded  as  a  very  desirable 
clergyman  for  the  enterprise.  At  the  head  of  the  committee  was 
a  Mr.  G.,  a  native  of  West  Hartford,  in  this  state,  who 
went  west  in  early  life  as  a  Congregational  minister,  but  who 
had  for  many  years  been  living  in  Chicago  as  a  retired  clergy- 
man on  a  comfortable  property  left  him  by  a  brother.  He  was 
now  old  and  not  very  vigorous,  but  full  of  earnestness  in  the 


THE   ONION  STEALER. 


lO/ 


effort  to  establish  a  Congregational  church  there.  Mr.  Patton 
himself  thought  favorably  of  a  removal  to  Chicago,  but  de- 
sired, as  did  the  committee,  that  his  church  should  fully  ap- 
prove of  the  arrangement.  A  meeting  of  the  church  was, 
therefore,  called,  and  very  largely  attended,  and  was  addressed 
by  Mr.  G.,  who  told  of  their  need  of  just  such  a  man  as 
Mr.  Patton,  and  of  the  field  as  one  of  great  usefulness  for  him. 
He  spoke  in  an  appealing  and  rather  tremulous  voice,  and 
wound  up  by  saying,  "  Brethren,  you  remember  how,  when 
our  Lord  was  about  to  make  his  triumphant  entry  into  Jerusa- 
lem, he  sent  forward  two  of  his  disciples  for  an  ass  that  they 
would  find  tied,  and  just  so  he  has  sent  us;  and,  as  he  told 
them,  if  they  were  asked  why  they  loosed  the  ass,  to  say  that 
the  Lord  had  need  of  him;  so  say  we." 

It  was  fortunate  that  a  literal  application  of  the  illustration 
to  our  good  Mr.  Patton  was  not  generally  thought  of  by  the 
audience,  else  there  would  have  been  an  outburst  of  laughter. 
As  it  was.  I  found  it  difficult  not  to  lead  off  in  one. 

THE   ONION-STEALER. 

Mr.  Henry  Mygatt  of  Farmington,  an  old  friend,  called 
at  my  office  in  Hartford  some  thirty  years  ago,  and  while  there 
I  asked  him  to  go  over  with  me  to  the  court-room  across  the 
way,  where  a  trial  for  murder  was  going  on.  He  did  so, 
and  we  sat  some  half  hour  listening  to  the  trial.  I  forget  the 
name  of  the  accused  man.  After  we  came  out  Mr.  Mygatt 
said  that  he  well  remembered  the  man  on  trial,  and  told  me 
this  story: 

The  man  lived  in  Wethersfield  when  he  himself  was  a  boy, 
that  being  his  own  birthplace,  and  was  the  mate  of  a  small 
sloop  that  belonged  in  Wethersfield,  and  ran  with  cargoes  of 
country  produce  to  New  York.  His  father  let  him  go  on  the 
sloop  on  one  of  her  trips  to  New  York  and  back.  He  was 
about  ten  years  old,  and  it  was  a  novel  and  very  interesting 
experience  to  him.  The  sloop  was  loaded  with  onions,  tied 
up  in  strings,  with  a  large  onion  at  the  bottom  and  tapering 
up  to  quite  a  small  one  at  the  top.  When  the  cargo  was  taken 
out  at  the  dock  in  New  York  the  mate  went  below  to  pass  the 
onions  up  through  the  hatch  to  a  man  on  deck,  who  received 
them  and  passed  them  on  to  another.  The  mate,  thinking 


108  REMINISCENCES. 

himself  not  observed,  broke  off  the  large  onion  on  each  string 
as  it  passed  through  his  hands,  and  threw  it  into  a  large  basket 
that  he  had  behind  him.  The  boy,  however,  was  where  lie 
could  see  it  all,  and  was  astonished  at  the  dishonesty  of  the 
mate,  for  he  saw  clearly  that  it  was  stealing,  and  of  a  very 
base  kind,  as  the  mate  had  charge  of  the  cargo  for  the  owners. 
The  incident  made  a  great  impression  on  his  mind,  but  his 
father  soon  after  removed  from  Wethersfield,  and  he  had  never 
seen  the  mate  since  or  known  of  his  history,  till  he  now  saw 
him  in  the  prisoners'  dock  on  trial  for  murder.  The  man  was 
convicted  on  his  trial  and  sent  to  the  State  Prison. 

I  have  often  told  this  story  in  Sabbath-schools  as  an  illus- 
tration of  how  little  beginnings  in  crime  lead  finally  to  great 
crimes,  and  to  the  State  Prison  or  the  gallows;  and  as  such  an 
illustration  it  is  worth  preserving. 

A  SUMMER   IN   GUILFORD. 

The  summer  of  1889  my  wife  and  I  spent  at  Nut  Plains,  an 
outer  district  of  the  town  of  Guilford,  in  this  state,  and  about 
two  miles  from  the  village.  The  house  was  a  large,  hospitable- 
looking  farm  house,  that  was  some  hundred  years  old,  and  had 
been  the  home  of  the  Foote  family,  in  which  Rev.  Dr.  Beecher 
found  his  first  wife,  and  which  now  belonged  to  and  was  occu- 
pied by  a  descendant  of  the  family.  Great  trees  between  the 
house  and  the  street,  and  along  the  highway,  gave  the  place  an 
attractive  look,  and  marked  it  as  an  old  home  of  thrift  and  com- 
fort. The  Foote  family  was  one  of  uncommon  intelligence 
and  refinement,  and  the  large  parlor  with  its  great  fireplace 
had  been  the  scene  of  frequent  and  notable  gatherings  of  in- 
teresting members  of  the  family  and  their  friends.  The  place 
was  full  of  rich  and  inspiring  associations. 

Back  of  the  old  farm  house  and  along  the  highway  there 
lay  a  wide  stretch  of  farm  land,  that  in  its  better  days  had  been 
highly  cultivated  and  productive,  but  which  now,  in  the  less 
prosperous  condition  of  farming  interests,  was  still  very  in- 
viting to  the  city  wanderer,  and  was  made  picturesque  by  the 
flowing  through  it  of  a  large  brook,  or  small  river,  which 
crossed  the  street  some  twenty  rods  below  the  house,  the 
ground  gently  descending  to  it,  in  which  a  boat  was  kept  for 
the  diversion  of  the  familv  and  its  visitors,  and  which,  where  it 


A    SUMMER  IN  GCILFORD. 


109 


passed  through  the  wide  pasture  higher  up,  made  a  place  for 
the  cows  to  wade  in  in  a  hot  day,  adding  a  charming  feature  to 
the  landscape. 

( >ur  great  enjoyment  of  the  place  and  the  people  is  well  ex- 
pressed in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  written  by  my  wife 
near  the  close  of  the  summer,  to  our  daughter,  then  in  Europe: 

We  have  really  had  an  ideal  summer.  The  absolute  peace  of  this 
country  home  and  congenial  household  has  been  restful  beyond  measure, 
and  to  be  able  to  wear  a  morning  dress  all  day  long,  not  expecting  a 
call  from  one  week's  end  to  another,  you  can  see  for  yourself  what  this 

must  be.     L ,  the  mother,  is  an  uncommonly  interesting  woman  ;  so 

graceful  in  form  and  motion  that  to  see  her  pick  beans  and  flowers  alter- 
nately in  her  home  garden,  and  cooking  the  one  and  arranging  the  other, 
both  with  deft  hands,  is  a  pastoral  study  ;  while  our  table  chat  with  the 
Cambridge  scholar  and  her  bright  young  sister,  the  mother  keeping  up 
her  part,  is  worthy  of  the  old  Nook  Farm  days.  It  is  delightful  to  see 
how  good  blood  tells.  These  Footes  are  a  people  by  themselves  in  their 
literary  accomplishments,  their  good  sense  and  fine  breeding,  and  this  old 
homestead  almost  talks  to  you  from  its  very  walls  of  the  days  gone  by. 
I  never  felt  more  sure  of  spirit  companionship  of  the  highest  order,  and 
your  father  thinks  few  parlors  in  all  the  land  have  gathered  a  more  noble 
company.  I  do  hope  you  can  spend  a  month  at  Nut  Plains  some  time, 
and  read  the  autobiography  of  your,  grandfather  Beecher  on  the  spot 
where  so  much  that  is  interesting  in  his  life  occurred. 

While  we  were  at  the  farm  my  wife  wrote  Mrs.  Stowe  of 
our  enjoyment  of  the  place,  and  told  her  how  our  little  grand- 
daughter, Isabel  Hooker,  who  spent  some  time  with  us  there, 
found  constant  delight  in  wandering  over  the  fields,  and  es- 
pecially in  playing  about  the  stream,  and  spoke  of  the  pleasant 
memories  that  she  herself  must  have  of  the  place,  as  she  in  her 
childhood  had  often  made  long  visits  there.  Mrs.  Stowe's 
memory  of  later  events  was  beginning  to  fail,  but  she  had  a 
clear  recollection  of  incidents  of  her  early  life,  and  it  was  pa- 
thetic to  observe  how,  as  she  lost  her  hold  on  present  things, 
she  dwelt  with  delight  upon  those  which  had  impressed  her  in 
childhood.  Soon  after  writing  her  my  wife  received  from  her 
the  following  letter  : 

WEDNESDAY,  Aug.  14,  1889. 
My  precious  Sister : 

I  have  read  your  note  over  four  times.     I  wish  I  could  be  with  you  in 
your  pleasant  visit  at  Nut  Plains,  where  some  of  the  most  joyous  days  of 


1 10  REMINISCENCES. 

my  childhood  were  spent.  All  the  things  that  you  mention  I  have  done 
over  and  over  again  when  I  was  a  wild  free  young  girl,  and  never  got 
tired  of  doing  them.  The  room  I  slept  in  for  the  most  part  was  the  first 
right-hand  room  as  you  get  to  the  top  of  the  front  stairs  ;  the  second  was 
the  spare  chamber  for  company,  where  many  long- remembered  pleasant 
people  lodged,  among  others  a  Miss  Mary  Caldwell,  very  beautiful,  and 
very  sweet  and  kind  to  me.  The  room  directly  facing  the  head  of  the  stairs 
was  Aunt  Harriet's  and  Grandma's.  It  had  two  large  comfortable  beds 
for  them.  I  sometimes  slept  with  Aunt  Harriet  in  her  bed  and  always 
enjoyed  it,  as  she  kept  me  so  nice  and  warm.  Then  there  was  the  colored 
woman,  Dine.  She  was  a  great  friend  of  mine  and  we  had  many  frolics 
together.  She  told  me  lots  of  stories  and  made  herself  very  entertaining. 

Then  there  was  the  graveyard  on  Sandy  Hill,  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  where  I  often  walked.  It  had  a  picket  fence  all  around  it  then,  with 
a  gate,  so  that  I  could  easily  get  in  and  read  the  inscriptions  on  the  grave- 
stones. 

Yes.  I  did  enjoy  all  the  things  that  you  say  Isabel  enjoys,  and  enjoyed 
them  to  the  full,  especially  throwing  stones  into  the  river  from  the  bridge. 
Sometimes  I  varied  this  by  throwing  in  chips  and  bits  of  paper,  and 
watching  their  downward  voyage. 

Well,  dear  sister,  I  must  close.  When  you  come  back  no  one  will 
welcome  you  more  warmly  than 

Your  loving  sister,  HATTY. 

My  wife  soon  after  wrote*  her  brother,  Rev.  Dr.  Edward 
Beecher,  then  living  in  Brooklyn,  New  York,  a  long  letter 
about  our  life  at  Nut  Plains,  and  enclosed  Mrs.  Stowe's  letter 
for  him  to  read.  He  wrote  the  following  letter  in  reply: 


BROOKLYN,  Aug.  22, 
My  dear  Sister : 

I  have  read  your  good  long  letter  from  Nut  Plains  with  deep  interest 
and  thank  you  for  it.  It  recalls  vividly  the  scenes  of  my  early  childhood. 
At  seven  years  of  age  I  went  there  from  Easthampton,  L.  I.,  and  after 
that  I  went  there  again  and  again.  But  Grandmother,  Aunt  Harriet 
and  Uncle  George  are  there  no  more  to  greet  me  as  of  old  ;  they  have 
gone  to  a  better  world.  I  recall  as  with  present  vision  all  the  scenery  to 
which  you  refer  and  the  little  river.  I  should  be  glad  to  see  them  again. 
So,  too,  the  little  graveyard  rises  before  me  and  recalls  past  years  and 
relatives. 

I  should  be  glad  to  attend  the  fifth  semi-centennial  of  Guilford  in 
September,  and  have  been  specially  invited  to  come.  What  I  shall  do  I 
have  not  decided. 

All  that  sister  Harriet  says  as  to  memories  of  the  past  at  Nut  Plains 


THE    WOMEN  FOUNDERS   OF  NEW  ENGLAND.  \\\ 

expresses  my  own  feelings.  That  mother  Roxanna  will  be  at  the  semi- 
centennial and  an  illustrious  multitude  with  her,  as  you  suggest,  I  do  not 
doubt.  Love  to  all,  from  your  affectionate  brother, 

EDWARD  BEECHER. 


THE   WOMEN   FOUNDERS   OP   NEW    ENGLAND. 

In  October,  1883,  the  Center  Congregational  Church  of 
Hartford  celebrated  its  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary. 
This  church  was  that  of  which  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker  was  the 
pastor,  and  which  he  had  led  across  the  wilderness  from  New- 
town,  now  Cambridge,  in  Massachusetts.  The  celebration 
was  held  in  the  Center  Church,  and  lasted  two  days  and  even- 
ings, a  very  large  assemblage  attending  each  of  the  services. 
A  large  picture  by, Cole  was  placed  conspicuously  in  front  of 
the  gallery,  representing  the  members  of  the  church  making 
their  way  through  the  wilderness,  with  their  pastor  at  their 
head,  and  his  wife  borne  on  a  litter. 

Mr.  William  R.  Cone,  who  had  been  appointed  to  preside 
at  the  meetings,  had  requested  me  to  be  sure  to  attend  and  to'be 
prepared  to  make  a  speech  at  one  of  the  evening  sessions,  and 
I  had  promised  him  that  I  would  do  so.  But  about  two  weeks 
before  the  celebration  I  went  to  Dansville,  in  the  state  of  New 
York,  to  attend  a  gathering  of  the  friends  of  Dr.  Jackson's 
Sanatorium  there,  at  the  opening  of  a  large  new  building 
which  had  been  erected  in  the  place  of  one  burned  the  year  be- 
fore. Of  this  I  have  spoken  in  an  article  on  that  institution. 
ante,  p.  TOI.  While  there,  just  as  I  was  about  to  leave  for 
home,  I  was  taken  quite  ill  and  was  confined  to  my  bed  for 
more  than  a  week,  and  until  after  the  celebration  at  Hartford 
had  gone  by.  I  was  greatly  disturbed  by  my  inability  to  be  at 
Hartford  on  so  interesting  an  occasion,  and  at  last  resolved  to 
write  some  lines  to  send  on  and  have  read  by  some  friend  for 
me.  I  at  once  set  about  writing  them  in  pencil  on  my  bed, 
and  was  able  to  sit  up  long  enough  to  copy  them  in  a  readable 
hand.  I  mailed  them,  with  a  brief  line,  to  my  wife,  who  re- 
ceived them  on  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day,  and  they  were 
read  the  following  evening  before  a  crowded  house  by  my  son, 
Dr.  Hooker.  His  brief  speech,  with  the  lines,  was  printed  in 
the  published  report  of  the  proceedings,  from  which  I  take  the 
following  account  of  what  occurred: 


112  REMINISCENCES. 

Mr.  Cone  said  :  Mr.  John  Hooker,  a  worthy  descendant  of  the  first 
pastor  of  this  Church,  we  hoped  to  have  heard  to-night,  that  we  might 
from  this  living  link  imbibe  somewhat  of  the  spirit  of  his  ancestor,  the 
Rev.  Thomas  Hooker.  His  health  does  not  permit  him  to  be  here,  but  I 
will  call  upon  his  son,  Dr.  Edward  B.  Hooker. 

Dr.  Hooker  said :  It  is  a  matter  of  regret  that  Mr.  Hooker  is  not 
here  to  say  himself  the  word  that  should  be  spoken  by  a  descendant  of 
Thomas  Hooker.  But  as  it  is  fitting  on  this  occasion  that  some  one 
bearing  the  family  name  should  speak,  to  me  a  few  hours  ago  was  releg- 
ated the  duty  of  saying  a  few  words. 

And  the  thought  that  comes  to  me,  after  laying  flowers  on  our  an- 
cestor's grave,  after  contemplating  the  shaft  raised  to  the  memory  of  the 
noble  men  who  came  with  him  and  on  which  is  inscribed  their  names, 
after  listening  to  the  address  of  the  afternoon,  is  this  :  While  honoring 
the  fathers  from  whom  we  have  come,  we  must  not  forget  the  mothers. 
They  alike  braved  the  dangers  and  endured  the  privations  of  that  early 
time  ;  their  earnest  prayers  and  cheering  words  sustained  the  men  in 
hours  of  distress  and  gloom. 

That  courageous  woman,  borne  tenderly  on  a  litter,  too  weak  to  walk 
or  ride,  too  brave  to  be  left  behind,  may  well  be  compared  to  the  Ark  of 
the  Covenant  which  the  children  of  Israel  bore  with  them  in  their  journey 
through  the  wilderness  to  the  promised  land.  She  was  really  a  sacred 
emblem  of  all  that  was  pure  and  holy.  And  the  women  founders  of  New 
England,  unknown  to  fame,  were  really  the  conservators  of  the  purity 
and  spirituality  of  the  church  and  society,  and  to  them  we  owe  as  great 
a  debt  as  to  the  grand  men  whom  history  loves  to  commemorate  and 
honor. 

Let  us,  therefore,  honor  our  fathers  and  our  mothers,  that  our  days 
may  be  long  upon  the  land  which  the  Lord  our  God  hath  given  us  ! 

Filled  with  the  same  thought,  my  father,  unable  to  be  present,  has 
sent  me  these  lines  to  read  : 

THE  WOMEN   FOUNDERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND. 

Ye  grand  men  of  our  early  day, 
Who  here  for  freedom  made  a  way, 
With  faith  and  prayer  and  quoten  Word, 
Yet  coat  of  mail  and  girded  sword  ; 
Who  laid  in  strength  the  founded  State, 
And  o'er  it  sat  to  legislate  ; 
And  oft  in  magistracy  stood 
Before  th'  admiring  multitude  ; 
Who  felt  th'  inspiring  sense  of  power 
And  thrill  of  the  victorious  hour  : 
And  saw  afar  that  grateful  fame 


THE  IDEAL    WOMAN.  U3 

Would  cherish  every  hero's  name  ; 
—  The  schoolboy  at  his  lesson  reads 
Th'  inspiring  record  of  your  deeds  ; 
The  public  eye  on  canvas  sees 
Your  conflicts  fierce  and  victories  ; 
The  monumental  shaft  is  reared 
To  keep  your  names  for  aye  revered. 

But  there  were  hearts  of  purest  gold 
Whose  tale  of  courage  ne'er  was  told  ; 
True  heroes,  who  no  armor  wore, 
Yet  shared  the  perils  that  ye  bore  ; 
Braving,  with  courage  none  the  less, 
The  savage  and  the  wilderness  ; 
Clothed  with  no  power  in  church  or  state, 
No  word  in  worship  or  debate  ; 
With  faith-lit  brow  and  helping  hand, 
Asking  but  by  your  side  to  stand  ; 
Who  had  no  hope  a  later  day 
Its  tribute  of  renown  would  pay  ; 
Who  made  their  sad  self-sacrifice 
Before  no  world's  admiring  eyes  ; 
Of  men's  remembrance  thinking  not, 
Content  to  toil  and  be  forgot. 

Ah,  when  the  heroes  of  that  time 

Are  numbered  on  God's  book  sublime, 

High  on  the  roll  of  that  true  fame  9 

Many  a  gentle  woman's  name, 

Which  earth  had  cared  not  to  record, 

Shall  stand  writ  Valiant  for  the  Lord. 

THE  IDEAL  WOMAN. 

The  Union  Signal,  a  paper  published  in  Chicago  by  the 
Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  sent  private  requests 
to  a  number  of  gentlemen  to  give  sketches  over  their  names 
of  what  they  thought  the  "  Ideal  Woman."  I  sent  the  follow- 
ing, which  was  soon  after  published,  with  others,  in  the  paper, 
and  was  copied  by  other  papers.  It  is  so  honest  an  expression 
of  my  real  opinion  that  I  think  no  one  will  regard  it  as  out  of 
place  here. 

No  man  ever  grew  up  with  more  reverence  for  a  fine  woman  than  I 
I  have  never  lost  that  reverence;  but  my  idea  of  what  constitutes  a  fine 


I14  REMINISCENCES. 

woman  has  materially  changed.  I  used  to  think  her  essential  qualities 
in  youth  were  sweetness,  delicacy,  and  modesty,  and  in  after  life,  a  home- 
loving  wifeliness  and  Madonna-like  motherliness.  Fifty  years  of  observ- 
ation and  reflection  have  taught  me  that  a  woman  grows  nobler  and  truer 
to  herself  and  all  her  obligations  who,  still  faithful  and  loving  in  her 
home  relations  (for  her  heart  will  always  be  there),  is  yet  full  of  intelli- 
gence on  all  matters  that  are  interesting  the  public,  —  full  of  a  sense  of 
the  value  of  her  sex  in  its  relation  to  social  progress, —  full  of  an  apprecia- 
tion of  her  rights  as  a  human  being,  inspirable  by  inspiring  thoughts  and 
influences,  and  a  power  for  good  in  the  community  in  which  she  lives, 
and  perhaps  in  that  larger  community  that  makes  up  the  nation  to  which 
she  belongs. 

She  is  to  me  the  noblest  woman  who,  without  mere  personal  ambition 
or  self-seeking  of  any  sort,  and  with  a  great  spirit  of  helpfulness  toward 
all  the  wronged  and  suffering,  limits  the  field  of  her  work  only  by  her 
ability  and  opportunity,  making  these  and  not  any  conventional  rules  the 
test  of  what  God  meant  that  she  should  do.  That  a  woman  may  be  all 
this  and  yet  not  lose  a  particle  of  her  wifeliness  or  motherliness,  or  of  her 
sweetness  and  delicacy,  is  a  matter  of  absolute  knowledge  with  the 
writer. 


ADDRESS  AT  REV.   DR.  PORTER'S  SEMI-CENTENNIAL  AT 
FARMINGTON. 

The  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  settlement  of  Rev.  Dr.  Noah 
Porter  over  the  Congregational  Church  in  Farmington  was 
celebrated  on  the  I2th  of  November,  1856.  I  had  been  bap- 
tized by  him  and  brought  up  under  his  most  wise  and  intelligent 
ministry,  and  was  invited  to  attend  and  take  a  part  in  the  public 
exercises.  I  was  then  living  in  Hartford.  The  old  church  was 
compactly  filled  by  his  parishioners  and  friends,  and  he  de- 
livered a  sermon  of  great  interest  in  the  forenoon.  A  boun- 
teous collation  was  prepared  by  the  ladies  of  the  church  for  the 
noon  recess,  and  the  afternoon  was  devoted  to  public  addresses. 
There  was  a  large  representation  of  the  clergy  of  the  neighbor- 
ing towns,  as  well  as  of  old  parishioners  of  Dr.  Porter  who  lived 
at  a  distance.  The  sermon  of  Dr.  Porter  and  the  addresses  de- 
livered were  afterwards  printed  in  a  pamphlet,  which  is  pre- 
served by  the  Farmington  people  with  much  interest. 

Prof.  Denison  Olmsted  of  Yale  College  was  the  speaker 
next  before  me.  The  fact  that  he  was  a  professor  of  astronomy 
explains  some  of  my  allusions  to  him.  He  remarked,  by  way 
of  introduction,  that  he  had  not  the  honor  of  being  a  native 


ADDRESS  AT  DR.  PORTER'S  SEMI-CENTENNIAL.   n5 

of  Farmington,  but  that,  when  eight  years  old,  he  accompanied 
his  mother  from  East  Hartford,  the  place  of  his  birth,  to  her 
new  home  in  Farmington,  where  he  lived  the  rest  of  his  child- 
hood, and  that  he  did  not  know  till  then  that  the  world  was  so 
large.  At  the  close  of  his  address,  which  was  full  of  interest- 
ing reminiscences  of  that  early  time,  I  was  called  on  by  John 
T.  Norton,  who  presided,  to  address  the  assembly.  The 
speakers  who  preceded  me  had  occupied  the  pulpit,  but  when 
I  arose  to  speak  I  asked  the  chairman  to  allow  me  to  stand  in 
the  deacons'  seat  below  the  pulpit,  but  he  insisted  that  I  should 
go  into  the  pulpit.  My  remarks,  as  they  appear  in  the  pamph- 
let, were  as  follows: 

MR.  CHAIRMAN  :  — 

You  have  persuaded  me  against  my  better  judgment  to  occupy  the 
pulpit  for  my  few  remarks.  The  deacons'  seat  is  all  that,  in  this  house 
and  on  an  occasion  so  suggestive  of  old  recollections,  I  had  supposed  my 
courage  would  be  equal  to,  and  as  the  old  awe  of  my  childhood  is  reviving 
within  my  breast,  I  feel  that  my  undertaking  is  one  of  no  little  peril. 

Our  friend,  Professor  Olmsted,  has  just  told  us  that,  while  he  cherishes 
fondly  the  remembrance  of  his  early  life  in  Farmington,  yet  he  can  not 
claim  the  honor  of  a  birth  here.  I  am  one  of  those  whose  pride  and  privi- 
lege it  is  to  have  been  born  here,  and  that  birthright  I  shall  never  sell  or 
surrender.  I  love  this  ancient  town.  It  seems  to  me  that  no  hills  ever 
looked  down  upon  so  beautiful  a  valley  —  as  if  no  valley  ever  looked  up 
to  so  beautiful  hills.  I  love  its  people  ;  I  love  its  history  ;  and  as  Paul 
claimed  his  birthright  as  a  Roman  citizen,  so  shall  I,  wherever  I  may  be, 
always  proudly  claim  my  birthright  as  Farmington- born.  Our  friend 
has  also  told  us  that  when  he  came  with  his  mother  from  East  Hartford, 
his  birthplace,  to  Farmington,  he  was  surprised  to  find  the  world  so 
large.  It  is  a  great  comfort  to  us  of  so  little  knowledge,  and  a  great 
encouragement  to  all  young  learners,  that  one  whose  telescope  nightly 
penetrates  infinite  space,  and  who  knows  more  about  Neptune  than  some 
of  the  old  settlers  know  about  Farmington,  should  once  have  been  so 
ignorant  of  the  limits  of  even  this  little  earth  as  not  to  know  it  was  so 
large  as  from  here  to  East  Hartford.  And  how  fitting  that  one  who  has 
thus  known  both  extremes  of  knowledge  should  come  here  to  speak 
words  of  eulogy  of  one  who  has  known  both  extremes  of  moral  goodness, 
who,  beginning  with  original  sin,  which  is  something  worse  than  the 
negation  of  all  good,  has  gone  on  in  goodness  till  he  has  attained  a  puint 
of  moral  excellence  beyond  which  a  mortal  cannot  hope  to  pass. 

An  occasion  like  this  suggests  much  that  is  grave;  but  the  committee 
of  arrangements,  a  few  minutes  ago,  sent  me  word  that  they  must  depend 


U6  REMINISCENCES. 

upon  me  to  be  humorous  in  my  remarks.  A  very  pleasant  suggestion, 
coming  with  such  authority,  to  one  who  is  just  rising  to  speak  with  his 
mind  all  charged  with  most  solemn  matter,  and  who  was  hoping  that  at 
least  in  so  clerical  a  presence  as  this  he  might  pass  himself  off  for  a  grave 
and  solemn  man.  The  occasion,  however,  has  put  to  flight  most  of  the 
fledglings  of  mirth.  There  is  too  much  humor  in  my  eye  for  humor  in 
my  heart.  Dry  wit  needs  a  dry  eye. 

After  all,  I  suppose,  whether  I  am  grave  or  mirthful,  so  long  as  I 
speak  at  all,  I  shall  have  answered  the  purpose  for  which  I  was  called  to 
this  duty  to-day.  I  suppose  the  real  object  in  bringing  me  out,  as  also 
brother  Clarke,  whose  name  I  see  is  on  the  programme,  and  perhaps 
some  others  who  were  born  and  brought  up  in  this  village,  is  that  we 
may  show  to  this  assembled  multitude  and  to  all  these  strangers  what 
excellent  boys  have  grown  up  under  Dr.  Porter's  preaching.  It  is  only 
one  of  the  modes  adopted  by  the  committee  of  doing  honor  to  him  whom 
we  all  delight  to  honor.  The  mode  is  ingenious,  and  I  am  very  confi- 
dent will  be  successful. 

Prof.  Olmsted  told  us  of  his  early  recollections  of  the  old  pulpit,  with 
its  heavy  green  hangings,  the  great  sounding  board,  and  the  high,  square 
pews.  All  these  things  in  the  form  in  which  our  fathers'  fathers  left 
them,  before  modern  improvement  had  profaned  the  ancient  sanctuary, 
are  most  vividly  impressed  upon  my  imagination.  That  high  pulpit, 
with  the  great  curtains  of  the  arched  window  behind  it,  and  its  heavy 
trimmings,  seemed  to  my  infantile  fancy  to  "  outshine  the  wealth  of 
Ormus  and  of  Ind."  And  the  huge  sounding  board!  I  never  fully 
fathomed  the  great  depths  of  its  meaning.  I  supposed  it  represented 
something  that  St.  John  speaks  of  in  the  Revelation,  probably  the  third 
heavens;  but  I  could  never  determine  exactly  what.  And  the  great, 
high,  square,  unpainted  pews  !  How  fresh  is  my  recollection  of  them! 
The  sides  were  so  high  that  we  children,  who  generally  sat  on  the  foot- 
benches  in  the  middle,  were  in  little  danger  of  having  our  attention  dis- 
tracted by  observation  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  outside  world.  It  is 
said  that  truth  lies  at  the  bottom  of  a  well,  and  if  so,  we  little  urchins  on 
our  low  foot-benches  might  well  be  regarded  as  burrowing  after  it. 

And  that  day  was  the  day  of  cold  meeting-houses,  and  of  foot-stoves. 
I  remember  well  how  I  used  to  carry  my  mother's  foot-stove  to  and  fro 
on  many  a  winter's  Sunday  ;  and  I  have  a  most  vivid  impression  of  one 
winter  Sabbath  when  our  pew  was  very  full  and  I  had  to  sit  during  all  a 
very  long  service  on  a  foot-stove,  and  the  great  inconvenience  I  experi- 
enced therefrom.  My  sensations  seemed  to  contrast  strongly  with  those 
of  the  ladies  near  me,  who,  wrapped  in  their  furs,  yet  shivered  from 
want  of  the  heat  which  I  was  so  reluctantly  absorbing.  "  My  heart  was 
hot  within  me."  My  indignation  almost  boiled  over.  But  I  had  self- 
command  enough  to  preserve  a  serene  and  sanctimonious  countenance 
suited  to  the  solemn  character  of  the  place. 


ADDRESS  AT  DR.  PORTER'S  SEMI-CENTENNIAL.   117 

I  have  often  thought  that  our  modern  system  of  heating  our  churches 
is  furnishing  us  physical  comfort  at  great  moral  sacrifice.  Now  the  super- 
abundant heat  makes  the  minister  languid  and  the  audience  sleepy  ; 
while  in  old  times  the  people  were  too  cold  to  sleep,  and  the  preacher, 
unable  to  wrap  himself  up  so  closely  as  his  hearers,  was  compelled  to 
gesticulate  earnestly  to  keep  himself  warm  ;  thus  producing  a  great  im- 
pression on  his  audience.  It  was  like  the  master  of  assemblies  hitting 
heavy  blows  with  his  hammer  on  the  nail  he  was  driving.  It  must  have 
been  some  such  preaching  as  this,  in  one  of  the  high  and  box-like  pulpits 
of  that  day,  that  led  a  little  girl,  taken  to  church  for  the  first  time,  to  ask 
her  mother  on  her  way  home  ' '  why  they  didn't  let  that  man  out  when  he 
was  trying  so  hard  to  get  out  and  hollering  so." 

My  early  impressions  of  Dr.  Porter  are  of  a  most  holy  and  venerable 
man.  I  remember  him  in  the  pulpit  on  Sunday, —  in  the  Sabbath-school, 
coming  in  just  at  the  close  of  our  recitations,  to  talk  to  us  children,  or 
occasionally  coming  a  little  earlier  and  hearing  some  of  us  recite,  —  and 
in  our  schools  of  a  Saturday  forenoon,  catechizing  us.  He  was  then  a 
young  man,  yet  to  my  childish  fancy  older  and  graver  and  more  solemn 
than  he  looks  to-day.  He  was  then  plain  Mr.  Porter,  yet  is  in  no  manner 
magnified  to  my  maturer  imagination  by  the  doctorate.  How  I  remem- 
ber my  awe  of  him  as  the  high  priest  of  our  sanctuaiy.  I  shall  never  see 
another  so  holy  a  looking  man  while  I  live. 

And  I  have  a  most  pleasant  early  recollection  of  our  good  Mrs.  Porter. 
She  is  here  with  us  but  will  not  forbid  my  alluding  to  her.  She  reigned 
not  merely  by  constitutional  right,  as  the  wife  of  our  pastor,  but  by  a 
more  direct  and  not  less  divine  authority,  through  her  hold  upon  our 
hearts.  She  will  not  be  offended,  I  know,  when  I  tell  how  well  I  remem- 
ber her  cookies.  I  used  often,  of  a  Saturday  afternoon,  to  go  to  Dr.  Por- 
ter's to  play  with  a  son  of  his  who  was  my  schoolmate,  and  at  such  times 
good  Mrs.  Porter  never  used  to  forget  the  injunction  to  "  feed  the  lambs." 
As  I  was  partaking  of  the  elegant  collation  at  the  hall  this  noon,  it 
occurred  to  me  that  while  the  good  Doctor  had  been  inculcating  religious 
truths,  his  good  wife  had  with  plentiful  moral  inculcations  mingled  a 
good  deal  of  practical  instruction  in  domestic  matters. 

But  those  good  old  days  have  passed  away.  The  old  pulpit  has  gone, 
with  a  good  deal  of  the  theology  that  was  once  preached  in  it.  Let 
them  both  go.  The  pulpit  inspired  me  with  awe,  but  some  of  the  theol- 
ogy with  a  deadly  fear  ;  a  fear  which,  thank  God,  has  since  given  way  to 
a  more  intelligent  trust  and  to  some  measure  of  that  love  that  casteth  out 
fear.  The  old  high  pulpit  has  gone,  and  in  the  place  of  it  we  have  this 
razee.  The  old  square  pews  have  slipped  out  of  sight.  The  old  sound- 
ing board  has  come  down  (or  gone  up,  I  hardly  dare  say  which),  and 
with  them  have  passed  away  men  and  women  dear  to  my  early  years,  — 
figures  in  a  grand  old  picture,  —  to  be  succeeded  by  others  still  more 


H8  REMINISCENCES. 

dear,  or  represented  by  a  few  still  living,  and  who  have  grown  only 
more  dear  and  venerable.  Beautiful  things  of  the  past  have  gone  ;  but 
beautiful  things  of  the  present  have  come.  It  is  all  fitting,  all  well 
allotted,  all  pleasant  and  beautiful.  I  would  make  no  change.  Our 
good  pastor,  upon  whom  I  once  looked  with  childish  awe,  has  long  been 
to  me  an  object  of  manly  and  familiar  love.  The  child's  awe  is  pleasant 
to  look  back  upon  ;  the  familiar  love  is  pleasanter  to  possess. 

I  should  love  to  occupy  some  time  in  notices  of  some  of  the  venerable 
men  of  my  early  and  later  recollection,  and  it  was  to  this  point  that  I  had 
purposed  to  direct  my  few  remarks  when  the  mandate  of  the  committee 
reached  me  ;  but,  as  others  are  to  speak,  and  there  are  but  a  few  minutes 
for  each  of  us,  I  will  deny  myself  the  pleasure  and  relieve  you  of  what 
might  be  in  my  hands  the  tedium  of  such  discourse,  and  close  with  sim- 
ply saying  of  our  beloved  Dr.  Porter, —  to  me  one  of  the  earliest  remem- 
bered and  the  latest  cherished  of  them  all, —  may  he  return  late  to  heaven ; 
may  his  declining  years  be  illuminated  by  the  beckoning  rays  of  the 
waiting  glory,  and  may  his  departure  be,  whilst  amidst  the  lamentations 
of  his  people,  yet  in  the  fullness  of  his  own  joy.  And  in  heaven  may  we, 
his  people,  be  permitted  again  to  sit  at  his  feet,  our  clearer  vision  only 
showing  us  new  reason  for  venerating  and  loving  him. 

CHIEF  JUSTICES  WILLIAMS  AND  STORKS. 

Judges  Williams  and  Storrs  were  judges  of  great  ability, 
and  probably  the  ablest  chief  justices  that  we  have  had  upon 
the  Supreme  Court  of  our  state.  While  both  were  so  superior 
and  filled  so  well  the  high  judicial  positions  which  they  held, 
they  were  strikingly  unlike  in  their  mental  characteristics  and 
habits.  Judge  Williams  had  retired  before  I  became  the  re- 
porter of  the  court,  in  January,  1858,  but  I  held  that  office 
under  Judge  Storrs  for  over  three  years.  I  thus  came  to  know 
him  well,  but  I  had  often  argued  cases  before  Judge  Williams 
in  both  the  Superior  and  the  Supreme  Court.  Judge  Storrs 
died  on  the  25th  of  June,  1861,  at  the  age  of  sixty-six.  Judge 
Williams  died  on  the  i5th  day  of  the  following  December,  at 
the  age  of  eighty-four.  Obituary  notices  of  them,  prepared  by 
me,  were  printed  together  in  the  2Qth  volume  of  the  Connecti- 
cut Law  Reports,  and  were  followed  by  a  comparison  of  them, 
and  a  contrast  of  their  more  striking  peculiarities.  This 
sketch,  now  buried  in  the  appendix  of  the  half-antiquated 
volume,  may  be  of  interest  to  many  of  the  readers  of  these 
reminiscences,  and  I  therefore  give  it  a  place  here. 


CHIEF  JUSTICES    WILLIAMS  AND  STORRS.       119 

In  bringing  into  so  close  proximity  these  brief  notices  of  Chief  Justice 
Williams  and  Chief  Justice  Storrs,  both  so  eminent  in  the  exalted  posi- 
tions which  they  occupied,  it  becomes  very  natural  to  compare  them,  and 
to  throw  into  contrast  their  more  striking  individualities.  While  belong- 
ing in  common  to  the  list  of  great  chief  justices,  they  were  yet  very  dis- 
similar. Indeed,  two  men  of  superior  intellects  and  of  the  same  general 
tenor  of  life  could  hardly  be  found  more  unlike  in  the  leading  character- 
istics of  their  minds.  That  of  Judge  Storrs  was  polished  in  the  highest 
degree  by  classical  study  and  a  lifelong  familiarity  with  the  best  English 
literature,  and  his  utterances  were  always  in  the  most  elegant  diction  of 
the  schools.  The  mind  of  Judge  Williams  had  derived  from  his  collegi- 
ate education  little  but  discipline,  and  he  generally  spoke  and  wrote  in  a 
condensed  and  vigorous  Saxon,  with  little  regard  to  the  balance  of  his 
sentences  or  the  grace  of  his  periods.  Judge  Storrs  had  a  mind  of  extraor- 
dinary penetration  that  could  look  down  the  deepest  abysses  of  thought 
without  agitation,  and  could  explore  the  profoundest  depths  without  los- 
ing its  way.  Judge  Williams  saw  whatever  he  was  looking  after  without 
seeming  to  search  for  it,  the  nearer  and  the  remoter  all  coming  before  his 
mind  alike,  as  obvious  truths  which  it  was  a  matter  of  course  for  every- 
body to  see.  The  mind  of  Judge  Storrs  was  stimulated  and  excited  by 
the  adventurous  character  of  any  mental  exploration  ;  that  of  Judge 
Williams  found  everything  so  plain  before  him  that  he  was  never  excited 
by  any  consciousness  of  great  intellectual  effort.  Judge  Williams  came 
to  his  conclusions  by  a  single  step,  and  with  something  like  intuition,  and 
looked  about  afterwards  for  his  reasons,  and  then,  less  to  satisfy  his  own 
mind  than  to  convince  his  associates  on  the  bench  or  the  public  in  his 
written  opinions.  Judge  Storrs,  in  seeking  his  results,  moved  along 
down  the  line  of  a  close  logic,  and  reached  his  conclusions  by  a  prior  con- 
sideration of  the  reasons.  The  writer  can  hardly  conceive  anything 
more  exquisite  than  the  movements  of  his  mind,  as  it  was  feeling  its  way 
along  through  a  maze  of  perplexities,  in  the  consultations  of  the  judges 
which  it  was  his  privilege  to  attend  as  reporter  of  the  court.  Both  were 
men  of  strong  common  sense.  With  Judge  Williams  this  common  sense 
dictated  the  result  and  left  his  reason  to  defend  it  ;  with  Judge  Storrs 
logical  reasoning  worked  out  the  result  and  then  an  almost  unerring 
common  sense  came  in  to  test  it,  and  to  prevent  the  too  common  mistake 
of  taking  what  seems  a  necessary  logical  conclusion  as  a  safe  and  correct 
one  in  so  practical  a  matter  as  the  administration  of  justice.  The  mind 
of  Judge  Williams  was  eminently  practical ;  that  of  Judge  Storrs  more 
inclined  to  the  speculative.  The  one  would  have  made  a  successful 
worker  in  almost  any  department  of  labor  that  required  a  vigorous  and 
self-reliant  intellect ;  the  other  would  have  made  a  philosopher  of  the 
best  age  of  philosophy.  Judge  Storrs  had  read  law  more  extensively,  and 
was  more  familiar  with  the  whole  range  of  law  as  a  science  ;  Judge  Wil- 


120  REMINISCENCES, 

liams  had  dealt  with  it  as  a  practical  thing,  rather  inhaling  it  as  an 
atmosphere  in  which  he  lived,  than  systematically  pursuing  it  as  a  study. 
Judge  Williams  rarely  hesitated  in  his  conclusions,  and  if  he  did,  seemed 
to  desire  only  time  for  reflection,  and  to  care  little  for  consultation  with 
others.  Judge  Storrs  worked  easily  to  his  conclusions,  but  was  always 
glad  of  an  opportunity  to  compare  his  views  with  those  of  his  brethren. 
Judge  Storrs  would  sometimes  let  considerations  of  policy  enter  his  mind; 
Judge  Williams  never.  The  mind  of  Judge  Williams  seemed  to  work  by 
a  law  of  its  own,  so  that  even  without  the  control  of  his  high  moral  quali- 
ties it  could  hardly  have  gone  astray;  that  of  Judge  Storrs  seemed  to 
involve  the  whole  aggregate  of  his  faculties,  so  that  with  a  bad  heart  he 
would  have  made  an  unsafe  judge.  Where  a  case  seemed  to  Judge 
Storrs  imperatively  to  require  a  decision  which  some  general  principle 
seemed  almost  as  imperatively  to  forbid,  he  would  find  his  way  to  the 
predestinated  result  with  surprisingly  little  injury  to  the  general  princi- 
ple. The  writer  hardly  knows  what  Judge  Williams  would  have  done  ; 
but  he  thinks  he  would  have  drawn  upon  his  courage  more  than  upon  his 
ingenuity.  The  manner  of  Judge  Storrs  on  the  bench  was  more  courte- 
ous and  affable.  The  quiet  firmness  of  Judge  Williams  approached  very 
nearly  to  sternness  ;  yet  the  former  would  often,  especially  in  his  later 
years,  manifest  an  impatience  under  a  lengthy  argument  that  the  latter 
would  never  have  shown  under  an  inexcusably  tedious  one.  Judge 
Storrs  was  never  very  fond  of  work,  and  in  his  later  years  was  a  little 
too  much  inclined  to  avoid  it.  Judge  Williams  never  knew  what  self- 
indulgence  was,  and  worked  through  the  allotted  hours  with  no  thought 
of  his  own  ease.  Judge  Williams  must  have  made  an  able  judge  at  the 
outset.  To  Judge  Storrs  the  training  of  judicial  experience  was  more 
necessary.  The  judicial  qualities  of  Judge  Storrs  would  be  called  splen- 
did,—  a  term  which  seems  hardly  appropriate  in  such  a  connection,  yet 
is  perfectly  applicable  here ;  those  of  Judge  Williams  were  great  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  term,  but  with  no  quality  of  brilliancy.  Both  brought 
honor  to  the  exalted  office  which  they  held,  and  have  left  to  their  associ- 
ates and  to  the  profession,  not  merely  great  examples  for  imitation,  but 
a  burden  of  increased  responsibility  in  preserving  the  high  character  of 
the  judicial  office. 

MY  DESIRE  FOR  A  JUDGESHIP. 

While  pursuing  my  legal  duties,  and  especially  as  I  began 
to  get  into  a  respectable  practice,  and  better  able  to  take  the 
measure  of  myself,  I  conceived  the  idea  of  fitting  myself 
thoroughly  for,  and  ultimately  obtaining,  a  seat  on  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  state.  This  became  my  sole  ambition.  I  would 
not  have  gone  to  the  United  States  Senate  if  I  could  have  had 


MY  DESIRE  FOR  A    JUDGESH1P.  I2i 

an  unanimous  election  to  it.  My  taste  ran  wholly  to  the  law. 
Still,  I  had  no  idea  of  attaining  the  position  for  many  years, 
if  at  all,  as  it  was  then  the  practice,  more  than  now,  to  place 
our  older  lawyers  on  our  highest  court,  a  practice  which  seemed 
to  me  a  very  proper  one.  My  present  opinion  is  that  it  is  better 
to  take  for  judicial  positions  our  young  men,  who  have  good 
judicial  qualities,  and  let  them  learn  the  trade  and  perfect 
themselves  by  experience,  beginning  in  our  courts  of  lower 
grade,  and  passing  in  gradation  to  the  higher.  With  all  my 
ambition  for  a  judgeship  I  felt  that,  if  a  vacancy  should  occur 
when  I  was  of  proper  age,  I  could  not  become  a  seeker  of  the 
office,  but  it  must  substantially  fall  into  my  hands.  It  had  be- 
come a  fixed  principle  with  me  that  I  would  never  raise  my- 
self an  inch  by  putting  my  foot  on  another  man's  neck.  I 
therefore  kept  on  my  legal  practice,  with  no  fret  over  this 
matter,  and  no  knowledge  on  the  part  of  my  professional 
brethren  that  I  had  any  thought  in  this  direction. 

Thus  things  stood  when,  in  January,  1858,  I  was  offered 
by  the  judges  of  our  Supreme  Court  the  place  of  reporter  of 
its  decisions.  This  office  I  accepted,  and  found  it  greatly  to 
my  taste.  It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  hear  the  best 
lawyers  over  the  state  argue  pure  legal  questions,  and,  greater 
still,  to  hear  the  cases  discussed  by  the  judges  in  consultation. 
There  could  not  be  a  better  law  school,  and  I  availed  myself 
of  its  opportunities  with  great  avidity.  I  felt  like  postponing 
all  thought  of  a  judgeship  until  I  had  perfected  myself  in  the 
law  in  the  position  that  I  was  in. 

In  June,  1861,  Chief  Justice  Storrs  died  very  suddenly. 
Judge  Hinman,  then  the  next  senior  judge  of  the  court,  would, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  be  elected  to  the  chief  justiceship,  but 
this  would  leave  a  vacancy  in  the  associate  membership  of  the 
court  that  would  be  filled  from  the  outside.  The  Legislature, 
then  sitting  at  Hartford,  was  just  closing  its  session,  and  there 
was  no  time  for  the  ordinary  canvassing  to  determine  who 
should  be  elected  to  fill  this  vacancy.  The  death  of  Judge 
Storrs  had  been  announced  in  both  houses,  and  eulogistic  ad- 
dresses made,  and  it  was  understood  that  the  Republicans, 
then  a  majority  of  both  houses,  would  that  evening  determine 
whom  they  would  the  next  morning  elect.  Some  Hartford 
gentlemen,  I  learned,  were  interesting  themselves  in  securing 
9 


1 2  2  REMINISCENCES. 

my  election  to  the  place,  and  I  went  into  the  city  to  ascertain 
what  was  being  done.  I  there  learned  that  it  was  the  nearly 
unanimous  determination  of  the  members  to  elect  me  the  next 
morning.  I  was  extremely  perplexed  over  the  matter.  The 
very  position  that  I  desired  was,  without  a  suggestion  from  me, 
brought  to  me  as  a  free  gift.  I  could  not  conceive  an  election 
under  more  favorable  circumstances.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
matter  had  come  up  suddenly,  and  with  no  time  for  considera- 
tion on  my  part,  while  I  desired  greatly  to  avail  myself  a  few 
years  longer  of  the  great  advantage  that  I  had  for  learning  law 
in  my  position  as  reporter  of  the  court.  On  the  whole,  I  dared 
not  venture  yet  upon  the  judgeship,  and  told  the  leading  mem- 
bers that  I  could  not  accept  the  office.  The  next  morning 
both  houses  elected  Thomas  C.  Perkins  of  Hartford,  who  de- 
clined the  appointment.  They  then  elected  Judge  Thomas  B. 
Butler  of  the  Superior  Court,  and  Elisha  Carpenter  to  a  judge- 
ship  in  the  Superior  Court  to  fill  the  vacancy  made  by  the 
promotion  of  Judge  Butler.  The  former  made  an  able  judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  and,  ultimately,  its  chief  justice,  and 
the  latter  began  a  judicial  career  which  lasted  for  thirty-two 
years,  and  was  one  of  great  usefulness  and  honor. 

In  1864  Judge  Sanford  of  the  Supreme  Court  died.  The 
Legislature  was  then  in  session  at  New  Haven,  and  there  was 
ample  time  for  filling  the  vacancy  with  deliberation.  At  that 
time  Mr.  H.  K.  W.  Welch,  one  of  our  best  lawyers,  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Representatives  from  Hartford.  He  was 
a  fine  man  and  one  of  my  best  friends.  I  had  known  before  of 
his  ambition  to  get  upon  the  Superior  Court,  and  I  now  learned 
that  he  was  fairly  and  honorably  availing  himself  of  his  oppor- 
tunity, as  a  member  of  the  House,  to  get  a  nomination  by  the 
Republican  caucus  for  the  vacancy  on  the  Superior  Court 
that  would  be  created  by  the  elevation  of  Judge  Park  of  that 
court  to  the  Supreme  bench.  His  plan  of  having  Judge  Park 
appointed  to  the  higher  court  necessarily  involved  my  exclu- 
sion from  that  place.  There  were,  in  fact,  several  aspirants 
to  a  place  on  the  Superior  Court,  all  of  whom  favored  the  eleva- 
tion of  Judge  Park  to  the  Supreme  Court.  This  created  a 
combined  interest  against  my  nomination  to  the  Supreme 
Court.  I  kept  no  watch  over  the  matter,  and  am  not  certain 
who  the  other  aspirants  and  their  friends  were.  At  this  time, 


MY  DESIRE  FOR  A    JUDGESHIP.  i2$ 

a  lawyer,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Senate,  wrote  me,  "  It 
needs  only  an  assent  on  your  part  to  give  you  an  unanimous 
nomination,"  and  proceeded  to  urge  me  to  assent.  Soon  after 
Richard  D.  Hubbard,  who  had  been  attending  hearings  at 
Xew  Haven,  came  up  to  Hartford  and  to  my  house,  expressly 
to  get  my  consent  to  the  use  of  my  name,  and  said  that  all  the 
profession  desired  my  appointment,  but  that  it  was  the  general 
opinion  that  I  would  not  accept  it,  and  that  all  that  was  wanting 
was  a  favorable  word  from  me.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  time 
I  had  waited  for  had  come,  and  that  it  was  best  for  me  to  take 
the  office  if  I  was  not  thereby  doing  a  great  disfavor  to  my 
friend  Welch,  and  I  told  Mr.  Hubbard  that  I  would  at  once 
see  Mr.  Welch,  and  if  he  consented  to  yield  the  opportunity  to 
me  I  would  allow  my  name  to  be  used.  Mr.  Welch  was  the 
next  day  to  return  from  New  Haven  for  the  week,  and  I  went 
in  to  see  him.  I  stated  the  whole  case  to  him,  and  my  utter 
unwillingness  to  disoblige  him.  He  said  that  it  had  been  for 
years  his  ambition  to  get  upon  the  Superior  Court,  as  it  had 
been  mine  to  get  upon  the  Supreme,  and  that  what  seemed  to 
him  his  opportunity  had  now  come,  and  was,  he  thought, 
within  his  grasp;  that  he  felt  sure  of  the  nomination  of  the 
caucus,  after  it  had  nominated  Judge  Park  for  the  higher  court, 
and  that  he  would  feel  that  I  brought  him  under  a  great  per- 
sonal obligation  to  me  if  I  should  not  interpose  in  the  matter. 
I  felt  entirely  unwilling  to  take  any  attitude  that  would  em- 
barrass his  plans,  which  seemed  to  me  well  laid  and  sure  of 
success,  and  I  so  told  him.  I  at  once  wrote  Mr.  Hubbard, 
not  wholly  abandoning  my  candidacy,  but  placing  such  condi- 
tions and  qualifications  upon  it  that,  he  wrote  me  that  it  was 
equivalent  to  refusing  the  office,  and  left  him  no  opportunity 
to  make  any  effort  in  my  behalf.  The  caucus  was  called  early 
the  next  week,  and  Judge  -Park  was  without  serious  opposition 
nominated  for  the  Supreme  Court.  This  ended  all  personal 
interest  on  my  part  in  the  contest,  but  I  was  compelled  to  wit- 
ness the  discomfiture  and  great  disappointment  of  my  friend 
Welch,  for,  when  the  ballot  was  taken  on  the  nominee  for  the 
Superior  Court  vacancy,  he  was  defeated.  I  never,  however, 
regretted  that  I  had  stepped  aside  for  him,  for  if  I  had  been 
elected  I  should  always  have  felt  that  he  might  have  had  the 
place  but  for  me,  and  should  not  have  enjoyed  the  position 


124  REMINISCENCES. 

thus  obtained.  I  felt  this  to  be  my  final  opportunity  to  go 
upon  the  Supreme  Court,  and  declined  the  nomination  with 
that  feeling. 

My  ambition  for  the  place  was  not  a  mere  conceit  that  I 
should  fill  it  well,  but  I  had  been  urged  to  it  by  numerous  letters 
from  some  of  the  ablest  lawyers  over  the  state,  and  had  been 
strongly  advised  by  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  go 
upon  the  court  whenever  there  was  an  opportunity,  and  I  am 
certain  that  I  should  have  been  warmly  welcomed  to  their 
companionship  there.  I  received  a  letter  a  few  days  later  from 
Judge  William  D.  Shipman  of  the  U.  S.  District  Court,  in 
which  he  expressed  his  regret  that  I  was  not  elected  to  fill  the 
vacancy,  and  the  leading  members  of  the  profession,  as  I  met 
them  about  the  state,  of  all  political  parties,  expressed  to  me  a 
like  regret,  and  said  that  I  would  have  been  unanimously 
nominated  if  it  had  not  been  an  understood  thing  that  I  would 
not  accept. 

It  is  a  little  aggravation  that  I  might  in  all  probability  have 
attained  the  chief-justiceship.  Judge  Park  became  chief  jus- 
tice in  1874,  and  Judge  Butler,  who  went  upon  the  court  when 
I  might  have  done  so  in  1861,  became  chief  justice  in  1870,  the 
latter  being  at  the  head  of  the  court  four  years,  and  the  former 
fifteen  years.  Though  the  ambition  of  my  life  was  defeated, 
yet  there  are  good  reasons  for  all  that  happens,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  I  have  been  a  happier  man,  and  as  much  respected,  and 
very  likely  have  had  more  friends,  which  is  better  than  all  the 
rest,  for  remaining  in  the  less  laborious  and  less  responsible, 
and  yet  very  enjoyable  position,  of  reporter  of  the  court.  And 
besides,  I  do  not  feel  at  all  sure  that  I  should  have  made  a  suc- 
cess as  a  judge. 

MY  SUPREME  COURT  REPORTERSHIP. 

In  January,  1858,  I  was  appointed  by  the  judges  of  our 
Supreme  Court  the  reporter  of  the  court.  The  place  had  been 
held  for  the  three  years  next  preceding  by  William  N.  Matson, 
who  now  resigned.  The  duties  of  the  office  were  very  much  to 
my  taste,  and  I  readily  accepted  the  appointment.  The  Connec- 
ticut Reports  had  then  reached  the  25th  volume,  a  part  of 
which  had  been  prepared  by  Mr.  Matson,  and  was  being 


MY  SUPREME  COURT   REPORTERSHIP.  125 

printed  under  his  superintendence.  I  completed  this  volume, 
and,  with  an  explanatory  note,  issued  it  as  my  first.  I  held 
the  office  until  January,  1894,  thirty-six  years,  having  during 
that  time  got  out  thirty-eight  volumes.  At  the  October  term 
of  the  court  at  Hartford,  in  1893,  I  handed  in  my  resignation, 
which  was  as  follows: 

To  Chief  Justice  Andrews  and  the  Associate  Judges  of  the  Supreme 

Court  of  Connecticut: 

I  hereby  resign  my  office  of  reporter  of  judicial  decisions,  the  resig- 
nation to  take  effect,  with  your  assent  to  the  delay,  on  the  ist  day  of 
January,  1894. 

In  retiring  from  this  office,  which  I  have  held  for  thirty-six  years, 
I  desire  to  express  my  sense  of  obligation  to  you  and  your  predecessors 
for  keeping  me  so  long  in  office,  and  for  the  familiar  and  exceedingly 
pleasant  companionship  to  which  I  have  from  the  first  been  invited. 
I  wish  to  express  also  my  great  respect  for  the  court  and  for  the  mem- 
bers who  have  composed  it,  and  who  seem,  as  I  look  back  over  the 
years,  to  be  a  constantly  moving  procession.  I  have  reported  the  de- 
cisions of  seven  chief  justices  and  fifteen  associate  judges.  My  at- 
tachment to  some  of  them  has  been  very  great,  and  it  has  rarely 
occurred  that  one  has  left  the  bench,  or  above  all  has  passed  from 
earthly  life,  without  a  feeling  of  personal  bereavement  on  my  part. 
Now  that  I  am  the  one  to  withdraw,  I  leave  my  best  wishes  for  your 
welfare  and  happiness. 

"  Respectfully  and  truly  'yours, 

JOHN  HOOKER." 

This  I  handed  to  the  judges  in  their  room  before  the  open- 
ing of  the  court.  On  the  opening  of  the  court  the  chief  justice 
read  it  and  the  following  response  on  the  part  of  the  judges : 

"  In  accepting  the  resignation  of  the  reporter,  the  judges  of  the 
court  desire  to  express  not  only  their  high  appreciation  of  his  services 
to  the  state,  but  the  warm  sentiment  of  regard  and  attachment  which 
he  has  inspired  not  only  in  them,  but,  as  they  well  know,  in  their  pre- 
decessors in  office,  during  a  long  course  of  years. 

"  Mr.  Hooker  began  his  labors  as  reporter  in  1858,  and  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  the  whole  series  of  Connecticut  Reports  has  been  his 
work.  From  the  first  to  the  last  of  these  volumes  he  has  shown  a 
rare  mastery  of  the  power  of  analysis  and  discrimination,  as  well  as  of 
concise  statement  and  clear  expression. 

"  The  judges  part  from  him  with  sincere  personal  regret  and  only 
consent  to  his  retirement  at  his  earnest  and  repeated  request." 


126  REMINISCENCES. 

The  chief  justice  then  announced  that  the  bench  had  ap- 
pointed James  P.  Andrews  to  succeed  me,  his  appointment  to 
take  eftect  on  the  first  day  of  the  following  January. 

I  ought  to  state  that  in  making  out  the  seven  chief  justices 
whose  opinions  I  had  reported,  I  included  Chief  Justice  VVaite, 
who  retired  just  before  my  appointment,  but  a  part  of  whose 
opinions  came  into  my  hands  to  be  reported.  The  other  six 
chief  justices  were  Storrs,  Hinman,  Butler,  Seymour,  Park, 
and  Andrews.  The  fifteen  associate  judges  were  Ellsworth, 
Sanford,  Button,  McCurdy,  Carpenter,  Phelps,  Foster,  Loo- 
mis,  Pardee,  Beardsley,  Granger,  Torrance,  Fenn,  Edw.  Sey- 
mour, and  Baldwin. 

My  connection  with  the  court  for  so  many  years  was  ex- 
ceedingly pleasant  to  me,  as  was  also  the  opportunity  it  gave 
me  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  lawyers  all  over  the  state, 
and  to  listen  to  the  arguments  of  the  ablest  counsel  in  many 
cases  of  great  interest. 

It  was  not  long  before  later  appointed  judges  were  my 
juniors,  and  for  the  last  twelve  years  of  my  tenure  of  the  office 
I  was  older  than  any  of  the  judges.  When  I  was  appointed 
the  judges  were  Chief  Justice  Storrs  and  Judges  Hinman, 
Ellsworth,  and  Sanford.  They  at  once  took  me  into  a 
familiar  personal  relation,  and  very  soon  recognized  what  they 
regarded  as  a 'special  faculty  for  dealing  with  puzzling  ques- 
tions of  law.  The  familiarity  to  which  I  was  thus  invited 
continued  and  increased  as  I  grew  older,  and  for  the  last  half 
of  my  thirty-six  years  in  the  office  I  had  an  exceedingly  en- 
joyable companionship  with  the  judges.  The  judges  of  this 
period  were  Chief  Justice  Park  and  Judges  Carpenter,  Loomis, 
and  Pardee,  with  Judges  Granger  and  Beardsley  a  part  of  the 
time  in  the  court,  and  coming  less  than  the  others  into  the 
"  family,"  as  we  called  it.  To  the  ordinary  very  interesting 
incidents  of  a  session  of  the  court  were  added  this  pleasant 
social  feature,  and  the  frequent  meetings  of  the  judges  at  the 
capitol  for  consultation  were  occasions  of  much  hilarity  until 
they  settled  down  to  business.  All  were  very  responsive  to 
humor,  for  which  my  modest  store  was  always  taxed,  to  which 
Judge  Loomis  was  always  ready  to  contribute,  and  to  which 
Judge  Pardee,  never  leading  off  in  sallies  of  his  own,  yet  re- 
sponded with  the  keenest  and  pithiest  wit  of  us  all.  In  this 


MY  SUPREME   COURT  REPORTERSHIP. 


127 


judicial  family  I  had  all  the  recognition  of  a  member.  I 
was  frequently  asked  to  help  disentangle  some  almost  im- 
penetrable complications  of  facts  and  law,  and  to  refer  them 
to  decisions  in  our  own  and  other  courts  that  bore  upon  the 
cases.  I  also  wrote  a  large  number  of  opinions,  sometimes 
in  cases  of  special  difficulty,  and  sometimes  only  to  help  some 
judge  who  was  ill.  I  find  that  there  are  in  the  volumes  which 
1  published  over  fifty  opinions  which  I  wrote.  These  opinions 
were  always  read  carefully  to  the  judges  and  considered  by 
them.  They  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  deciding  of  the  case. 
That  had  already  been  done  and  the  preparation  of  the  opinion 
assigned  to  one  or  another  of  the  judges,  who  adopted  the 
opinion  which  I  wrote  as  his  own.  One  of  the  most  interest- 
ing and  difficult  of  the  cases  in  which  I  wrote  the  opinion, 
and  to  which  I  should  refer  with  most  satisfaction  as  showing 
my  mode  of  doing  such  work,  is  the  case  of  Andreas  vs.  Hub- 
bard,  50  Conn.  R.,  351,  a  chancery  case  of  great  perplexity  and 
difficulty,  in  which  the  opinion  was  written  for  and  stands  in 
the  name  of  Chief  Justice  Park.  I  also  wrote  the  opinion  in 
the  case  In  re  Mary  Hall,  50  Conn.  R.,  131,  which  sustained 
her  application  to  be  admitted  to  the  bar.  This  also  stands  in 
the  name  of  Chief  Justice  Park. 

I  felt  much  doubt  whether  it  is  right  for  me  to  state  these 
facts,  and,  if  right,  whether  it  is  in  good  taste,  and  asked  the 
opinion  of  my  warm  friend,  Judge  Loomis,  who  is  the  sole 
survivor  of  the  judges  of  that  time,  and  he  wrote  me  the  follow- 
ing letter  a  few  days  later: 

HARTFORD,  June  30,  1897. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Hooker: 

You  ask  me  whether  it  will  be  entirely  proper  for  you  to  refer  in 
your  Reminiscences  to  the  very  intimate  relation  in  which  you  stood 
to  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  when  you  was  its  reporter.  Dur- 
ing my  time  on  the  court  you  were  older  than  any  of  the  judges,  and 
we  were  all  glad  to  have  you  present  at  our  consultations  and  to  avail 
ourselves  of  your  long  familiarity  with  legal  principles  and  reported 
cases.  While  we  should  all  have  been  very  sorry  to  lose  you  from 
the  reportership,  for  which  you  had  a  special  aptitude,  we  should  have 
felt  great  satisfaction  in  seeing  you  on  the  court,  even  at  the  head  of 
it,  where,  I  believe,  you  would  have  been  had  you  not,  with  character- 
istic generosity,  withdrawn  your  candidacy  in  favor  of  a  friend.  I 


128  REMINISCENCES. 

can  see  no  harm  that  can  come  from  a  knowledge  of  these  facts,  and 
good  reason  why  you  should  have  the  credit  of  them. 

Very  truly  your  friend, 

DWIGHT    LOOMIS. 

There  are  special  reasons  why  I  desired  to  give  to  the  pub- 
lic the  facts  which  I  have  stated.  My  whole  taste  was  for  the 
law,  I  found  myself  specially  adapted  to  the  understanding 
and  applying  of  legal  principles,  my  sole  ambition  was  for  a 
seat  on  the  Supreme  Court.  I  twice  had  such  a  seat  pressed 
upon  me  when,  for  reasons  that  were  decisive  with  me,  I  de- 
clined it,  and  I  had  spent  my  life  in  the  subordinate  and  un- 
noticed position  of  reporter  of  the  court.  If  I  had  gone  upon 
the  bench  when  I  had  the  opportunity  I  should  in  all  proba- 
bility ("  undoubtedly,"  the  judges  told  me)  have  been  at  the 
head  of  the  court  for  several  years.  If  I  had  been  appointed 
to  that  position,  which  I  consider  the  most  honorable  in  the 
state,  far  more  so  than  the  governorship,  my  family  would 
have  had  the  pleasure  of  that  high  association  with  my  name. 
It  would  have  been  a  pleasant  memory  for  me  to  leave.  It 
would  not  have  been  without  gratification  to  me  in  my  old 
age,  though  for  that  I  care  but  little. 

In  closing  I  find  I  can  give  a  pleasant  illustration  of  Judge 
Pardee's  humor,  which,  as  I  have  before  said,  was  always  re- 
sponsive, and  never  intrusive  or  merely  spontaneous.  As  I 
grew  old  I  occasionally  yielded  to  the  inclination  to  doze  at  my 
desk  in  the  court-room.  This  was  a  very  venial  offense,  es- 
pecially in  one  in  my  position,  where  there  was  no  responsi- 
bility for  the  decision  of  the  case  that  was  being  argued.  At  a 
social  gathering  to  which  I  was  invited  with  the  judges  the 
matter  of  my  relation  to  the  court  was  spoken  of.  I  remarked 
that  I  was  the  Homer  who  recorded  in  a  legal  epic  the 
achievements  of  the  judicial  Agamemnons.  "  Yes,"  said 
Judge  Pardee,  "  and  aliquando  bonus  Homcrus  donnitat." 

NOTE.  I  cannot  find  a  better  place  than  this  to  mention,  what  I 
desire  to  state  somewhere,  that  in  the  reprint  of  several  of  the  volumes 
that  I  issued  most  serious  errors  of  type  occur,  which  .most  persons 
who  notice  them  will  be  likely  to  hold  me  responsible  for.  Among 
others  is  the  occasional  printing  of  Judge  Sanford's  name  with  a  d  in 
the  middle.  I  beg  the  profession  to  remember  that  I  am  in  no  manner 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP.        129 

responsible  for  those  errors.     There  were  some  errata  noticed  in  my 
original  volumes,  but  these  were  all  corrected  in  the  reprints. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF   MY   REPORTERSHIP. 

During  the  thirty-six  years  that  I  held  the  office  of  re- 
porter of  judicial  decisions  I  kept  note-books  in  which  I  en- 
tered everything  pertaining  to  the  cases  tried,  and  made  notes 
of  incidents  in  court  or  pertaining  to  the  court  which  seemed 
worthy  of  preservation.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  I  might 
make  an  interesting  chapter  of  these  incidents.  Many  of 
them  are  entertaining  and  some  of  them  are  quite  serious  in 
their  character.  I  think  the  members  of  the  legal  profession 
will  be  glad  that  I  have  gathered  and  preserved  them. 

When  I  entered  upon  the  office  in  1858  Judge  Storrs  was 
chief  justice.  He  was  a  man  of  very  fine  classical  culture,  as 
well  as  of  a  most  thorough  knowledge  of  law,  and  presided 
over  the  court  with  great  elegance  and  dignity.  One  of  the 
earliest  terms  of  the  court  was  held  at  Norwich.  The  court- 
house at  that  time  (it  was  soon  after  burned)  was  on  one  of  the 
upper  streets  of  the  city,  making  a  laborious  climb  for  the  chief 
justice,  who,  with  only  ordinary  height,  carried  considerably 
over  two  hundred  pounds  of  flesh.  One  day  the  judges,  on 
their  way  up  together  for  the  afternoon  session,  decided  a  case 
from  Fairfield  County  that  they  had  fully  discussed  before,  but 
had  not  finally  disposed  of.  I  was  not  with  them,  but  soon 
after  I  got  into  the  court-room  the  chief  justice  leaned  over 
the  bench  and  handed  me  the  following  note: 

"  Super  viam  dolorosam  inter  Waureganum  hospitium  et  templum 
justitiae,  Suprema  Curia  pro  Correctione  Errorum  decidit  advisare 
Superioram  Curiam  pro  comitatu  Fairfieldiae,  ut  in  casu  Solomon  vs. 
Wixon  novus  trial  debet  concedi;  et  Park,  Judex,  scribet  £uriae 
opinionem." 

After  I  had  read  it  he  said  that  he  could  not  think  of  any 
Latin  for  "  new  trial,"  and  I  must  write  in  the  proper  word. 
I  asked  him  if  "  nova  quaestio  "  would  do.  He  thought  it 
would,  and  I  wrote  it  in,  and  copied  the  note  in  my  book.  I 
thought,  however,  on  more  reflection,  that  "  nova  auditio  " 
would  have  been  better,  but  I  let  it  go  as  it  was. 


130 


REMINISCENCES. 


His  description  of  the  steep  street  as  a  "  via  dolorosa  " 
shows  what  it  was  to  him  to  climb  it.  On  the  way  down  one 
day  he  was  trying  hard  to  hold  himself  back,  when  he  said  to 
me  that  he  ought  to  wear  a  breeching  to  go  about  the  Norwich 
streets.  Judge  Ellsworth  one  day  said  of  the  city  that  you 
step  out  of  one  man's  cellar  into  another  man's  garret.  But 
as  a  compensation  for  this  difficulty  of  climbing  its  steeper 
streets,  Norwich  is  the  most  picturesque  city  in  this  state,  and 
I  think  in  all  New  England. 

It  has  from  the  first  been  the  custom,  and  is  so  still,  to  have 
the  terms  rf  the  Supreme  Court  opened  with  prayer.  Judge 
Storrs  told  me  that,  a  short  time  before,  in  opening  a  term  at 
Brooklyn,  then  the  shire  town  of  Windham  County,  Rev.  Mr. 
Tillotson,  a  Congregationalist  clergyman  of  Brooklyn,  prayed 
that  God  would  be  with  the  judges  "  and  overrule  all  their  de- 
cisions." 

The  court  was  sitting  at  Middletown  in  1858,  and  a  case 
came  before  it  in  which  one  Brainerd  was  plaintiff  and  in  which 
he  sought  to  have  a  sale  set  aside  into  which  he  had  been 
fraudulently  drawn  by  the  defendant.  Brainerd  claimed  to  be 
weak-minded  and  to  have  been  imposed  upon  by  the  defend- 
ant; and  a  committee  to  whom  the  case  had  been  referred  had 
found  that  he  was  weak-minded.  Charles  Chapman  was  his 
counsel,  and  he  had  pressed  this  point.  Charles  Tyler  for  the 
defendant  claimed  that  he  was  a  shrewd,  money-making  fel- 
low and  sharp  enough  to  cheat  any  lawyer  in  the  room  who 
should  try  to  make  a  bargain  with  him.  While  Tyler  was 
speaking,  Brainerd  came  in  and  sat  down  by  Mr.  Chapman. 
Tyler  stopped  and  looked  around  at  the  two,  and  then  said  to 
the  court:  "There  now  —  there  is  the  very  man  himself. 
Nobody  who  should  look  at  these  two  together  would  hesitate 
a  moment  to  say  that  Brainerd  is  much  the  most  intelligent- 
looking  of  the  two." 

In  a  consultation  in  1858  over  a  usury  case,  Judge  Storrs 
told  of  a  case  in  the  state  of  New  York,  where  the  statute  was 
so  plain  that  the  jury  were  compelled  to  bring  in  a  verdict 
against  the  plaintiff,  while  the  justice  of  the  case  and  their 
sympathies  were  all  with  him.  While  compelled  to  sustain  the 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP.       131 

defense,  they  expressed  their  opinion  of  the  defendant  by  a 
verdict  that  they  "  found  the  issue  for  the  defendant  and  that 
he  was  a  great  rascal."  He  also  quoted  a  remark  of  Dr. 
Dwight's  in  one  of  his  college  sermons,  that  "  all  reason  was 
against  usury  laws,  but  all  experience  in  their  favor." 

In  a  consultation  on  a  will  case  in  1860,  Judge  Storrs  said 
that  Chief  Justice  Daggett  used  to  say  that  in  Connecticut  a 
will  was  good  if  it  was  made  at  any  time  before  the  bell  began 
to  toll  for  the  funeral. 

In  the  suit  of  Persse  &  Brooks  vs.  Watrous,  argued  in  the 
Supreme  Court  in  1861,  the  plaintiffs  were  the  owners  of  a 
water  power  in  Windsor  Locks  and  of  a  mill  upon  it.  One  of 
the  lawyers  remarked  that  it  was  a  fair  presumption  that  the 
partner  Persse  furnished  the  money  and  the  partner  Brooks 
the  water  power. 

Here  is  a  judicial  remark  upon  a  practical  question  in  legis- 
lation that  is  worth  preserving.  In  the  course  of  an  argument 
before  the  court  in  1861,  Mr.  Parsons  was  speaking  of  the 
difference  between  public  and  private  acts  in  the  mode  of 
passing  them,  when  Judge  Ellsworth  remarked  that  private 
acts,  appropriating  money  or  making  grants,  are  generally 
passed  without  being  sent  to  the  governor  for  approval;  but 
that  Governor  Wolcott  always  claimed  that  all  the  action  of 
the  legislature  on  private  resolutions  and  grants  should  be 
submitted  to  the  governor.  He  said,  however,  that  they  were 
not  in  all  cases,  even  in  Governor  Wolcott's  day,  and  have  very 
generally  not  been  since.  Here  Mr.  Hubbard  remarked  that 
the  governor  had  lately  in  some  cases  taken  it  upon  him  to 
veto  private  acts.  Judge  Ellsworth  replied:  "  I  know  it,  but 
the  question  has  not  been  settled  whether  his  veto  amounted 
to  anything." 

In  a  case  argued  by  Mr.  Hungerford  at  Hartford,  a  party 
to  whom  certain  real  estate  had  been  conveyed,  finding  a  dis- 
advantage in  the  ownership,  as  it  involved  certain  liabilities, 
had  executed  a  formal  disclaimer  of  title  and  put  it  on  record. 
Mr.  Hungerford  contended  that  the  disclaimer  had  no  legal 
effect,  and  said  it  reminded  him  of  a  story  he  had  heard  about 


132 


REMINISCENCES. 


how  a  man  secured  his  neighbor's  fat  turkey.  He  took  the 
turkey  to  the  neighbor's  house  and  told  him  he  was  looking 
for  the  owner;  that  the  turkey  had  flown  into  his  parlor  and 
broken  a  looking-glass  worth  twenty-five  dollars,  and  he 
wanted  the  owner  to  pay  the  damage.  "  Well,"  said  the 
owner,  "don't  bring  him  here;  he  don't  belong  to  me."  So 
the  man  took  him  home  and  roasted  him  for  his  dinner. 

Sometimes  a  little  secret  history  of  official  proceedings  is 
interesting.  I  find  a  note  in  my  book  giving  the  following  ac- 
count of  a  proceeding  on  the  part  of  the  court  which  called  out 
considerable  comment  at  the  time.  It  was  in  June,  1867. 
The  legislature  was  in  session  and  had  before  it  a  bill  for  tax- 
ing the  income  from  United  States  bonds  that  were  themselves 
exempt  from  taxation  by  the  terms  upon  which  they  were 
issued  by  the  general  government.  The  validity  of  the  act 
was  questioned  and  a  concurrent  resolution  was  passed  by 
the  two  houses  requesting  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court 
to  give  an  opinion  on  the  subject.  The  court  was  then  in  ses- 
sion and  at  noon  on  the  day  the  resolution  was  sent  to  them 
the  judges  gave  the  matter  some  consideration  and  decided 
to  excuse  themselves  from  giving  the  opinion  requested.  I 
was  not  present  at  their  discussion,  but  the  chief  justice  re- 
quested me  during  the  afternoon  session  to  prepare  a  decorous 
reply  to  the  legislature  with  reasons  for  their  declining  to  give 
the  opinion.  I  asked  him  what  reasons  were  to  be  given. 
"  Oh  (said  he),  you  must  think  them  up.  Write  the  best  thing 
you  can  and  hand  it  up  to  me,  and  I  will  read  it  to  the  judges. 
It  is  not  a  proper  thing  for  us  to  do  —  that  is  the  whole  of 
it."  The  afternoon  session  was  just  commencing,  and  a  case 
came  on  at  once  for  argument,  and  I  was  compelled  to  think 
the  matter  out  with  a  vociferous  lawyer  making  a  speech 
directly  over  my  head.  I  took  paper  and  pen  and  worked 
through  the  task  in  a  little  over  an  hour.  Here  is  what  I 
wrote : 

To  the  Honorable  General  Assembly,  now  in  session: 

The  undersigned,  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Errors,  have 
had  under  consideration  the  resolution  of  your  honorable  body  re- 
questing the  opinion  of  the  judges  as  to  certain  proposed  legislation 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP.       133 

for  the  taxation  of  the  income  of  the  bonds  issued  by  the  United  States 
and  held  by  inhabitants  of  the  state. 

There  are  in  our  minds  so  strong  objections  to  the  practice  of 
asking,  on  the  part  of  the  legislature,  and  of  giving  on  the  part  of  the 
judges,  opinions  in  advance  as  to  the  validity  of  contemplated  legis- 
lation, that  we  feel  it  to  be  our  duty,  without  intending  any  disrespect 
to  your  honorable  body,  to  decline  to  give  the  opinion  requested. 

1.  Such  action  on  our  part  would  be  clearly  extra-judicial.     It 
would  be  a  case  purely  of  advice  and  not  of  judgment.     There  are 
no  parties  before  us  and  nothing  for  us  to  adjudicate  in  any  sense  of 
the  term. 

2.  Our  action  being  extra-judicial,  and  really  rather  our  individual 
than  official  action,  it  cannot  be  of  any  binding  character  whatever. 
No  judge  of  the  Supreme  or  Superior  Court,  in  any  case  hereafter  be- 
fore him,  would  be  bound  by  our  opinion.     We  ourselves  should  not 
be  bound  by  it.     Being  merely  advice  it  would  be  in  contemplation 
of  law,  and  probably  in  fact,  of  no  more  authority  than  the  opinion 
of  any  other  five  experienced  lawyers;  except,  perhaps,  as  we  our- 
selves if  sitting  upon  any  such  case  might  be  inclined  to  adhere  to 
an  opinion  which  we  had  expressed. 

3.  So  far  as  our  opinion  would  be  regarded  as  having  authority, 
and  so  far  as  we  ourselves  would  be  influenced  by  it  in  any  future  case 
before  us.  there  are  the  more  serious  objections  to  our  giving  such  an 
opinion  upon  a  purely  ex-parte  hearing,  with  no  arguments  of  counsel, 
no  searching  investigation  of  the  principles  involved,  and  only  the  con- 
clusion that  we  can  best  arrive  at  upon  a  comparison  of  our  several 
impressions  on  the  subject  in  a  consultation  among  ourselves. 

4.  There  are  grave  reasons  for  regarding  such  extra-judicial  action 
as  invalid,  both  from  its  conflict  with  our  judicial  duties  and  from  its 
conflict  with  the  legislative  duties  of  your  honorable  body.     As  to  the 
latter  it  is  clear  that  the  judiciary  cannot  properly  mingle  in,  or  in  any 
way  interfere  with,  your  separate  and  independent  rights  and  duties  of 
legislation.     As  to  the  former  it  is  very  clear  that  any  expression  of 
opinion  on  our  part  becomes  a  prejudgment  of  a  question  that  may 
come  before  us  or  other  judges  of  our  courts  for  adjudication  between 
litigating  parties,  where  the  parties  would  have  a  right  to  our  un- 
biased judgment.  It  is  believed  that  in  the  states  where  the  practice  pre- 
vails there  is  some  constitutional  provision  for  it.     In  one  of  the  states 
where  there  was  a  statute  authorizing  either  branch  of  the  General 
Assembly  to  submit  questions  with  regard  to  the  validity  of  legislation 
to  the  Supreme  Court  for  its  opinion,  the  judges  were  of  the  opinion 
that  the  statute  itself  was  unconstitutional. 

5.  It  is,  perhaps,  proper  that  a  word  should  be  said  with  regard 


1 34  REMINISCENCES. 

to  the  precedents  which  already  exist  for  such  action  in  this  state. 
In  two  instances  within  a  few  years  the  opinion  of  the  judges  as  to 
the  validity  of  acts  or  proposed  acts  of  the  legislature,  has  been  asked 
by  the  legislature  and  given  by  the  judges.  Both  these  cases  were  of 
acts  of  great  importance,  the  one  affecting  the  right  of  voting,  and 
the  other  of  citizenship,  where  an  immediate  opinion  was  needed,  and 
where  the  points  involved  could  not  well  be  reached  by  ordinary  litiga- 
tion. Both  were  cases  where  we  might  without  impropriety  or  any 
offense  have  declined  to  give  the  opinions  requested;  but  we  thought 
it  better,  without  intending  to  establish  or  confirm  a  precedent,  to 
give  the  opinions. 

We  beg  your  honorable  body  to  accept,  in  the  assurance  that  noth- 
ing disrespectful  is  intended,  our  conclusion  to  decline  to  give  any 
opinion  upon  the  question  submitted  to  us. 

I  supposed  that  of  course  the  judges  \vould  read  the  paper 
over  and  make  suggestions,  which  I  should  embody  in  a  sec- 
ond draft,  but  they  all  accepted  it  as  it  was,  without  changing  a 
word,  and  it  was  at  once  signed  by  the  five  judges  and  sent  to 
the  General  Assembly.  The  judges  who  signed  it  were  Hin- 
man,  C.  /.,  and  Butler,  McCurdy,  Park,  and  Carpenter. 

On  the  i Qth  of  November,  1867,  I  made  the  following  note 
in  my  reporter  note-book: 

The  judges,  reporter,  and  two  or  three  members  of  the  New  London 
County  bar,  dined  to-day  with  Judge  Park.  We  had  a  fine  dinner  and 
an  uncommonly  pleasant  time.  Mrs.  Park  is  a  beautiful  woman  and 
very  attractive  in  her  manners.  Judge  Carpenter  had  brought  on  his 
wife  and  was  staying  at  Judge  Park's.  The  house  is  delightfully 
situated  on  the  high  bank  on  the  east  side  of  the  Thames,  about  a 
mile  from  the  center  of  the  city,  at  what  is  called  Laurel  Hill.  The 
view  of  the  river  from  the  house  is  very  fine. 

In  a  case  at  New  Haven,  while  Judge  Button  was  at  the 
bar,  he  appeared  for  an  ignorant  Irishman  to  resist  an  applica- 
tion for  a  new  trial.  The  counsel  for  the  plaintiff  in  error 
made  the  opening  argument,  and  when  Mr.  Button  rose  to 
reply  the  chief  justice  said :  "  We  do  not  care  to  hear  you,  Mr. 
Button."  Upon  this  his  client  arose,  and.  walking  to  the 
front,  said  he  should  insist  on  his  right  to  be  heard,  that  he 
was  there  with  a  good  case,  and  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the 


SOME  INCIDENTS   OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP. 


135 


court  to  hear  him.  He  kept  on,  growing  more  and  more 
earnest  and  voluble  as  he  proceeded,  and  it  was  all  that  his 
counsel  could  do  to  convince  him  that  the  court  had  decided 
the  case  in  his  favor,  and  to  induce  him  to  sit  down. 

In  a  case  at  Bridgeport  the  counsel  for  one  of  the  parties 
had  stated  in  his  brief  that  his  client  had  been  "  commorant " 
in  certain  places  named,  applying  to  him  the  term  "  com- 
morant "  half  a  dozen  times  in  his  brief  of  two  pages.  The 
printer  had  in  every  case  printed  it  "  cormorant,"  and  the 
counsel  had  failed  to  notice  the  error  until  the  copies  were  dis- 
tributed among  the  judges. 

Chief  Justice  Hinman  died  February  21,  1870,  at  the  age 
of  sixty-eight.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Hartford  County  bar,  at 
w:hich  addresses  were  made  by  several  of  the  lawyers,  I  said  a 
few  words,  which  I  find  reported  in  a  paper  of  the  next  day. 
I  cannot  better  give  my  view  of  the  judge's  character,  or  the 
circumstances  of  his  last  illness: 

Mr.  Chairman:  I  think  the  hearts  of  us  all  are  touched  by  the  death 
of  Judge  Hinman.  We  have  long  been  familiar  with  his  presence  in 
the  Superior  Court,  and  as  the  presiding  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  he  has  had  in  a  very  large  degree  our  confidence  as  an  able  and 
upright  judge.  I  feel  myself  that  I  have  sustained  a  personal  loss  in 
his  death.  As  reporter  of  the  court  for  the  last  twelve  years,  I  have 
been  probably  more  familiar  with  him  than  most  members  of  the  bar. 
While  he  was  not  a  man  with  whom  I  should  have  naturally  formed 
an  intimate  friendship,  for  we  disagreed  about  almost  everything  but 
law,  yet  brought  by  my  official  duties  so  much  into  his  society  I  came 
to  respect  and  esteem  and  love  him,  and  we  have  been  for  several  years 
very  warm  friends.  We  talked  up  very  frequently  and  very  good  na- 
turedly  almost  everything  that  we  differed  about,  from  politics  to  Con- 
gregationalism and  Episcopacy.  As  a  judge  he  was  remarkable  for  his 
vigorous  common  sense.  I  have  never  known  a  man  who  had  more.  A 
bench  composed  of  several  judges,  as  is  ours,  contains  men  of  various 
mental  constitutions,  and  such  a  man  as  he  forms  an  indispensable  mem- 
ber of  such  a  court.  At  the  end  of  a  long  consultation  among  the 
judges,  he  would  come  in  with  a  vigorous,  incisive  and  decisive  common 
sense  that  seemed  to  settle  the  question.  He  had  a  large  knowledge  of 
law  (for,  as  he  told  me,  he  never  forgot  what  good  law  he  had  once 
read),  and  was  always  able  to  refer  readily  to  the  principle  that  was  to 
govern  a  case,  and  yet  his  opinion  seemed  to  be  rather  the  expression  of 


1 36  REMINISCENCES. 

common  sense  than  of  law.  He  had  no  fondness  for  legal  casuistry, 
and  a  not  very  nicely  discriminating  mind.  His  honesty  seemed  to 
be  rather  constitutional  with  him  than  to  come  from  any  very  nice 
conscientiousness.  He  seemed  to  go  right  because  he  could  not  help 
it.  After  hearing  a  complicated  case,  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  only  to 
shake  his  head,  and  let  his  brain  settle  to  a  level,  and  the  case  was 
decided  and  decided  right.  He  never  seemed  to  have  an  anxiety  as  to 
how  he  would  come  out,  as  he  felt  sure  he  would  come  out  about  right, 
and  he  never  worried  himself  very  much  afterwards  for  fear  he  might 
have  gone  wrong.  His  very  freedom  from  anxiety  was  a  guarantee 
against  any  perturbation  of  his  mind  or  error  of  his  judgment. 

He  was  taken  ill  at  New  Haven  while  the  Supreme  Court  was  in 
session  there  two  weeks  ago  to-night,  and  the  next  morning  was  ad- 
vised by  a  physician  whom  he  called  in  to  go  home,  as  he  might  be 
ill  for  a  few  days,  though  no  one  supposed  the  matter  to  be  serious. 
He  was  to  take  the  eleven  o'clock  train,  and  I  left  him  at  the  hotel 
and  went  into  the  court-room  at  nine.  A  little  before  eleven  I  went 
to  the  hotel  to  help  him  off  and  to  go  with  him,  if  he  desired,  to  the 
railroad  station.  I  had  some  pleasant  talk  with  him  as  I  was  helping 
him  pack  his  carpet-bag,  but  as  he  thought  there  was  no  need  of 
my  going  to  the  station  with  him,  I  took  leave  of  him  there.  The  last 
thing  as  I  was  going  I  said  to  him,  "  Well,  Judge,  I  hope  this  illness 
won't  amount  to  much,  but  I  have  always  feared  that  some  short  ill- 
ness would  carry  you  off.  There  must  be  a  last  time  and  that  generally 
comes  when  we  don't  expect  it.  Now  I  want  to  feel  that  you  are  ready 
to  go."  "  Oh,"  said  he,  "  Mr.  Hooker,  I  believe  I  am  ready.  Good- 
bye." And  these  were  the  last  words  that  were  ever  exchanged  be- 
tween us.  I  supposed  that  he  was  getting  better,  and  was  taken  en- 
tirely by  surprise  on  hearing  of  his  death  last  evening.  I  am  sure  the 
bench  has  lost  an  able  judge.  I  know  that  I  have  lost  a  good  friend. 

Chief  Justice  Butler  died  on  June  8,  1873.  He  had  been 
hopelessly  ill,  and  had  sent  in  his  resignation  three  weeks 
before  his  death,  so  that  the  legislature,  which  was  then  near 
the  close  of  its  session,  might  select  his  successor.  The 
legislature  at  once  elected  Judge  Origen  S.  Seymour  of  the 
Supreme  Court  to  the  place  of  chief  justice,  and  Judge  John  D. 
Park  of  that  court  to  be  chief  justice  on  Judge  Seymour's  be- 
coming seventy  years  of  age,  which  would  be  on  the  Qth  of 
February,  1874.  The  new  chief  justice  presided  at  the  June 
term  of  the  court  at  Litchfield,  where  he  resided,  and  on  the 
evening  of  the  first  day  gave  a  tea  party  at  his  house  for  the 
court  and  its  attendants.  I  find  this  note  under  date  of  June 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP.       137 

nth  in  my  note-book:  "  A  very  pleasant  tea  party  last  even- 
ing at  Chief  Justice  Seymour's.  Present  all  the  judges  and 
myself  and  wife;  also  Mrs.  Judge  Carpenter,  George  C.  Wood- 
ruff and  wife,  Edward  W.  Seymour  and  wife,  and  Judge  Sey- 
mour's family,  consisting  of  himself  and  wife  and  his  daugh- 
ter, a  very  pleasing  and  agreeable  lady."  My  wife  and  I  had 
driven  up  in  a  private  carriage,  and  after  the  term  closed 
started  westward  on  a  month's  journey. 

Chief  Justice  Seymour  retired  on  the  Qth  of  February, 
1874,  and  Judge  Park  became  chief  justice.  His  last  term 
was  that  held  in  Fairfield  County  on  the  27th  of  January  of 
that  year.  The  bar  of  Fairfield  County  gave  him  an  elegant 
banquet  on  one  of  the  evenings  of  the  term.  There  were  pres- 
ent the  governor  of  the  state,  Judge  Park,  the  chief  justice-elect, 
the  other  Supreme  Court  judges,  the  reporter,  several  of  the 
judges  of  the  Superior  Court,  Judge  Woodruff  of  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court,  and  a  large  number  of  the  members  of 
the  bar,  including  several  from  other  counties.  Mr.  James 
C.  Loomis  presided,  and  after  the  supper  was  over  made  the 
opening  address.  He  gave  as  the  first  toast  "  Our  Chief  Jus- 
tice." To  this  Judge  Seymour  responded  as  follows: 

I  stand  here  to-night  on  the  eve  of  separation  from  pursuits  to  which 
during  a  long  life  I  have  been  devoted.  I  have  enjoyed  my  pro- 
fessional life  at  the  bar. and  on  the  bench,  and  I  do  not  and  cannot 
look  with  indifference  upon  my  approaching  separation  from  these 
duties. 

I,  however,  make  no  quarrel  with  the  constitutional  provision  under 
which  my  retirement  takes  place.  "  The  days  of  our  years  are  three 
score  years  and  ten;  "  when  those  years  are  accomplished,  nature  craves 
a  brief  period  of  repose  between,  on  the  one  hand,  the  active  duties  of 
life,  and  its  final  close  on  the  other. 

I  submissively  bow,  therefore,  to  the  law  of  the  land,  believing  it 
to  be  in  harmony  with  the  law  of  nature,  but  at  the  same  time  I 
cherish  the  memories  of  professional  life,  and  part  from  it  with  fond 
regrets,  and  I  will  occupy  your  time  a  few  moments  this  evening  in 
suggesting  some  particulars  wherein  the  lawyer's  life  among  the  varied 
pursuits  of  mankind  is  regarded  by  me  as  a  favored  one. 

I  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  my  native  county  of  Litchfield  in  1826, 
and  I  at  once  found  myself  in  possession  of  a  privilege  which  I  then 
thought  might  be  peculiar  to  myself,  but  which  I  afterwards  found  was 
common  to  all  young  lawyers,  to  wit,  the  privilege  of  fellowship  on  free 


138  REMINISCENCES. 

and  easy  terms  with  the  elder  brethren.  I  well  remember  the  pleasure 
of  these  associations  and  the  help  I  derived  from  them.  It  is  pleasant 
to  recall  the  names  of  the  giants  in  those  days  when  I  was  a  stripling  — 
Bacon,  Miner,  Huntington,  Beers,  Boardman,  the  Churches,  and  Smith. 
When  I  found  myself  in  a  snarl,  and  that  happened  to  me  semi-daily, 
I  always  found  relief  in  the  ready  and  cheerfully  given  counsel  of  these, 
my  venerable  seniors. 

It  is  a  truth  familiar  to  us  all,  that  lawyers,  young  and  old,  high  and 
low,  rich  and  poor,  associate  together  with  great  freedom;  not  perhaps 
that  we  love  one  another  more  than  the  medical  faculty,  but  our  busi- 
ness brings  us  constantly  into  association  with  our  brethren;  our  labors 
are  not  isolated,  but  performed  in  public  and  in  each  other's  company, 
whereby  we  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  each  other.  No  man 
can  conduct  a  complicated  cause  in  court  without  showing  to  his  breth- 
ren what  manner  of  man  he  is.  If  he  has  mind,  industry,  learning,  and 
culture,  he  shows  it;  his  temper  and  disposition  will  show  themselves. 
If  he  has  integrity  and  truthfulness  in  him,  they  will  appear.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  he  is  a  sham,  everybody  will  see  it.  The  practice  of  chang- 
ing partners  as  associate  counsel  brings  lawyers  into  the  most  intimate 
relations  with  each  other.  It  is  amusing  to  notice  gentlemen  who  are 
oppbsed  to  each  other  in  the  morning  almost  to  personal  altercation, 
in  the  afternoon  engaged  as  associates,  and  at  once  as  familiar  and  inti- 
mate with  each  other  as  the  Siamese  twins.  We  become  therefore  thor- 
oughly acquainted  with  each  other  and  wear  no  .masks  in  each  other's 
society. 

In  this  connection,  if  time  allowed,  I  would  like  to  describe  the  bar 
meetings  of  olden  time,  which  had  a  lingering  existence  fifty  years  ago, 
but  those  old-fashioned  gatherings  could  not  be  conducted  on  temper- 
ance principles,  and  upon  the  advent  of  the  temperance  reformation  they 
"  took  the  chills  "  and  died  out.  But  the  chief  attraction  of  the  profes- 
sion lies  in  the  inherent  dignity  of  the  law  itself,  controlling  as  it  does, 
by  its  silent  power,  the  moving  masses  in  all  their  various  relations 
and  interests  —  in  the  equity,  calm  wisdom  and  dispassionate  justice 
of  its  precepts  —  in  its  noble  history  in  the  past,  and  in  the  services 
and  accomplishments  of  its  living  professors. 

The  bar  has  always  drawn  to  itse4f  the  best  talent  and  highest  culture 
of  the  country,  and  hence  the  contests  of  the  bar,  conducted  by  skillful 
and  learned  counsel,  furnish  scenes  of  intense  and  instructive  interest. 
The  marvelous  and  varied  powers  of  the  human  mind  are  in  these  con- 
tests called  for  and  developed  in  a  manner  and  to  an  extent  unequaled 
on  any  other  arena. 

I  readily  recall  many  such  scenes,  as  lively  and  dramatic  as  the 
inventions  of  Shakespeare's  genius.  I  would  not  be  understood,  how- 
ever, as  saying  that  the  court-room  was  exactly  "  paradise  regained." 


SOME  INCIDENTS   OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP. 


139 


The  scenes  are  generally  animated,  spirited,  and  varied;  sometimes, 
however,  dull  and  stupid,  sometimes  disgusting,  exhibiting  human 
nature  in  its  most  revolting  form;  and  the  members  of  the  bar  have 
much  thankless  labor,  many  sleepless  nights  and  bitter  disappointments. 

But  it  is  in  his  library  that  the  true  disciple  of  the  law  finds  his 
highest  satisfaction.  He  can  here  interrogate  the  masters  of  juris- 
prudence, ancient  and  modern,  upon  the  matter  he  has  in  hand,  and 
will  seldom  fail  of  getting  an  appropriate  answer.  I  yield  no  blind 
obedience  to  authorities  and  precedents.  Law  is  a  progressive  science. 
When  it  is  said  that  law  is  the  perfection  of  reason,  it  is  not  to  be 
understood  that  all  the  utterances  of  judges  and  jurists  are  such.  There 
are  mistakes  and  errors  in  the  past  which  the  present  may  correct,  and 
there  are  mistakes  and  errors  in  the  present  which  it  is  to  be  hoped 
the  future  will  correct,  but,  taken  as  a  whole,  a  law  library  is  replete 
with  sound  truths,  applicable  more  or  less  directly  to  the  various  living 
issues  pending  before  the  courts,  not  mere  abstract  truths  worked  out 
in  the  closet,  but  truths  upon  which  learned  arguments  have  been  heard 
at  the  bar,  and  learned  consultations  had  by  the  bench,  so  that  all 
available  learning  on  the  subject  is  brought  forward  and  has  received 
its  due  weight.  It  is  difficult  to  overestimate  the  value  of  the  well- 
weighed  opinions  of  such  chancellors  as  Hardwick,  Eldon,  and  Kent, 
and  of  such  judges  as  Mansfield,  Ellenborough,  and  Marshall. 

Among  the  most  cherished  memories  of  my  professional  life  is 
the  intimate  acquaintance  which  I  have  enjoyed  with  all  the  eminent 
jurists  who  have  adorned  the  bench  of  the  state  during  the  last  fifty 
years.  I  need  not  recite  their  familiar  names  in  this  assembly,  but  you 
will  permit  me,  occupying  the  position  I  do,  to  repeat  the  names  of 
those  who  have  filled  the  high  office  I  am  about  to  lay  down,  nomina 
clara,  each  of  which  upon  bare  mention  suggests  all  the  virtues  pertain- 
ing to  their  high  judicial  position. 

When  I  came  to  the  bar  the  chief  justiceship  was  held  by  the  learned 
Hosmer,  followed  in  quick  succession  by  Daggett,  Williams,  Church, 
Waite,  Storrs,  and  Hinman,  and  then  by  my  immediate  predecessor, 
the  lamented  Butler,  companion,  friend,  brother.  In  this,  his  native 
county,  he  needs  no  eulogy  from  me.  In  the  reports  of  his  judicial 
opinions  he  has  raised  to  himself  a  monument,  aere  perennius.  Allow 
me  in  conclusion  to  propose  as  a  toast,  "  The  memory  of  the  honored 
dead  of  the  bench  and  bar  of  the  state." 

This  toast  was  drunk  in  silence,  all  standing.  Governor 
Ingersoll  replied  in  a  most  eloquent  speech  to  a  toast  to  the 
"  Governor  of  the  State."  Other  addresses  were  made  by 
Judge  Park,  the  new  chief  justice,  Judge  Foster,  Judge  Wood- 
ruff of  New  York.  G.  H.  Hollister,  and  Mr.  White  of  Dan- 


1 40  REMINISCENCES. 

bury.  Mr.  Sumner  of  the  Bridgeport  bar,  who  was  judge  of 
probate  for  the  district,  read  the  following  poem,  which  he 
said  had  been  written  the  day  before  at  the  suggestion  of  a 
leading  member  of  the  bar: 

I    knew,    I    knew,    these   lively    chaps    would   stop    at   nothing    short 
Of  seeking  in  this  deadful  strife  the  court  of  last  resort; 
In  other  words,  the  court  that  waits  the  drainage  of  life's   cup, 
And  then  inquires  for  all  his  pranks  how  .much  the  man  "  cuts  up." 

I  tell  you  when  you  probe  the  Court  of  Probate,  you  shall  find, 
In  consequence  of  consequence,  it  isn't  far  behind; 
It  wants  a  man  of  parts,  be  sure,  to  understand  the  rules, 
To  care  for  all  the  widows  and  the  infants  and  the  fools. 

I  magnify  my  office  then,  as  everybody  should, 

And  say  that,  in  a  quiet  way,  I  am  doing  heaps  of  good; 

It's  all  the  speech  I'll  make  for  my  constituents'  dissection, 

You'll  see  in  only  two  months  hence  there'll  be  a  new  election. 

But  this  is  neither  here  nor  there;  I  chiefly  rise  to  say 

How  pleased  I  am  to  meet  our  proud  fraternity  to-day, 

And  help  entwine  a  graceful  wreath  around  his  honored  brow, 

Who,  having  fought  a  noble  fight,  puts  off  his  armor  now. 

Thrice  blest  the  man  who,  counting  up  his  three  score  years  and  ten, 
Presents  a  model  in  himself  unto  his  fellow-men; 
And  in  the  plenitude  of  all  his  varied,  ripened  powers, 
Beholds  a  gladsome  retrospect  of  unneglected  hours. 

And  gazing  forward  can  discern  a  pleasant  pilgrimage 
Adown  the  smooth  declivities  of  a  serene  old  age; 
Assured  that  when  his  day  is  done,  he  shall  but  sink  to  rest, 
As  summer  sun,  with  all  his  radiant  banners,  in  the  west. 

E'en  such  the  .man  whose  patriarchal  presence  here  we  greet, 
As  round  the  festive  board  to-night  his  fond  disciples  meet, 
To  here  pronounce  o'er  him  our  benedictive  word,  "  Well  done!  " 
And  for  ourselves  uplift  the  prayer,  "  God  bless  us  every  one!  " 

Let  wiseacres  and  shallow  fools  deny  the  truth  who  can, 
The  thorough  lawyer  can  but  be,  and  is,  the  thorough  man; 
What  cultured  gifts  must  all  combine  and  in  his  being  blend, 
Not  all  mankind  I  ween  are  fit  to  gauge  or  comprehend. 

What  arduous  toil,  what  anxious  care,  how  vigorous  the  school 

Wherein  our  jealous  mistress  holds  us  subject  to  her  rule, 

Is  ours  who  strive  our  best  within  this  sphere  of  life  to  go, 

Let  those,   and   those  alone,   recount,  who  best  can  feel   and   know. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP.       141 

I've  made  a  brief  upon  this  point,  and  from  statistics  say, 
The  lawyers,  of  professionals,  do  most  for  smallest  pay; 
The  average  lawyer  —  overhaul  the  record  and  be   sure  — 
Works  always  hard,  lives  pretty  well,  and  goes  to  Heaven  poor. 

And  yet  we  lead  a  pleasant  life,  the  company  is  good, 
And  gentle  fellowship  obtains  within  our  brotherhood; 
Exceptions  but  confirm  the  rule,  and,  take  us  all  together, 
A  nobler  band,  I  dare  declare,  were  never  bound  by  tether. 

And  all  the  world,  whate'er  it  says,  respects  the  legal  calling, 
And  must  confess  that  but  for  us  its  state  would  be  appalling. 
The  very  man  who  finds  in  our  pursuit  the  biggest  flaw, 
If  he  can  boast  a  boy  with  brains,  will  have  him  study  law. 

My  time  is  up  —  a  health  to  all;  and  unto  him,  ere  while, 
Our  honored  chief,  who  now  returns  to  join  the  rank  and  file, 
Long  life  —  and  when  in  heavenly  courts  he  stands  at  last,  be  then 
His  children's  children's  proudest  boast  —  illustrious  Origen! 

At  the  same  session  of  the  court  in  Fairfield  County  the 
case  of  Bailey  vs.  Bussing  was  argued.  Mr.  H.  S.  Sanford, 
one  of  the  counsel,  in  his  argument  remarked  that  the  case  had 
been  in  court  eighteen  years,  and  was  now  carried  for  the 
fourth  time  to  the  Supreme  Court,  and  commented  on  the  at- 
tenuated thread  of  life  that  was  left  to  it.  He  then  said: 
"  The  late  Chief  Justice  Storrs  in  one  of  his  opinions  quotes, 
very  pertinently,  two  lines  from  one  of  Watts's  hymns.  So  in 
this  case  I  go  to  the  same  authority  for  two  lines  that  bear  very 
directly  upon  the  present  case: 

"  Oh,  Lord,  on  what  a  slender  thread 
Hang  ever  -  last  -  ing  things." 

The  quotation  made  by  Judge  Storrs  is  in  the  case  of  Hoyt 
vs.  Smith,  27  Conn.  R.,  68. 

At  the  next  session  of  the  court  at  Norwich,  Judge  Park, 
now  chief  justice,  invited  me  to  dine  at  his  house,  and  I  find 
this  entry  under  date  of  March  n,  1874: 

"  I  took  dinner  at  Judge  Park's,  .meeting  there  Judge  Carpenter, 
who  is  staying  with  him,  Webster  Park,  the  judge's  brother,  and  three 
ladies  who  had  been  invited.  An  excellent  dinner  and  a  sociable  and 
enjoyable  time.  Mrs.  Park  is  a  beautiful  woman,  and  full  of  vivacity, 
and  fond  of  hospitality.  The  judge  is  full  of  plain  common  sense  and 
bears  his  new  honors  as  chief  justice  very  modestly." 


142 


REMINISCENCES. 


An  incident  that  would  have  come  very  pertinently  in  my 
chapter  on  Charles  Chapman  would  have  been  overlooked  en- 
tirely but  for  a  newspaper  account  of  it  which  was  published 
in  1874,  and  which  I  had  preserved  at  that  time  in  my  note- 
book. The  case  of  Collins  vs.  Hall  was  tried  in  the  Superior 
Court  at  Hartford  in  1843,  Mr.  Chapman  being  counsel  for 
the  plaintiff  and  Governor  Ellsworth  for  the  defendant.  This 
was  some  time  before  Governor  Ellsworth  went  upon  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  while  he  was  in  general  practice.  The 
suit  was  brought  to  recover  the  value  of  a  horse  called  "  Black 
Prince."  Mr.  Chapman  was  always  in  his  element  in  a  horse 
case  and  brought  all  his  skill  and  all  his  wit  to  the  service  of 
his  client  in  this  case.  It  appeared  that  the  horse  had  been 
employed  for  many  years  in  carrying  the  mail  from  Hartford 
to  Barkhamsted,  and  later  was  turned  out  to  fatten  in  a  pas- 
ture, and  finally  by  some  means  came  into  the  hands  of  the  de- 
fendant. The  plaintiff,  the  original  owner,  had  never  got  his 
pay  for  him,  and  brought  this  suit  for  it.  Mr.  Chapman  had 
been  extolling  the  horse  extravagantly,  and  Governor  Ells- 
worth in  reply  advised  him  to  write  a  suitable  epitaph  for  such 
a  rare  horse.  Governor  Ellsworth  had  been  governor  of  the 
state  for  four  successive  years,  but  was  finally  defeated  for  the 
first  time  in  1842.  The  winter  following,  and  just  before  this 
trial,  his  horse  had  run  away  with  a  sleigh  dragging  at  his 
heels,  and  before  he  could  be  stopped  had  plunged  into  the 
Connecticut  River  and  was  drowned.  Mr.  Chapman,  after 
the  suggestion  that  he  should  write  an  epitaph  on  the  horse, 
took  his  pen,  and  before  Governor  Ellsworth  had  finished  his 
argument  wrote  these  lines,  which  in  his  closing  argument  he 
read  to  the  court  and  jury : 

A  faithful  steed  who  long  had  served, 
And  never  from  his  duty  swerved, 
Had  drawn  for  years  o'er  hill  and  dale 
The  Hartford  and  Barkhamsted  mail; 
Who  never  in  his  youth  or  prime 
Was  even  once  behind  the  time, 
And  e'er,  though  always  poorly  fed, 
Was  proud  and  stately  in  his  tread; 
At  last  was  taken  from  the  stage 
Because  of  his  advancing  age, 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP.       143 

And  turned  to  range  and  feed  at  will 

Upon  a  barren  Hartland  hill. 

He  fattened  there,  grew  sleek  and  nice, 

And  would  command  'most  any  price, 

When  he,  in  latter  part  of  fall, 

Was  led  away  by  David  Hall. 

The  owner  never  since  that  day 

Has  seen  the  horse  or  got  his  pay, 

And  thinks  it  don't  surpass  belief 

That  the  "  Black  Prince  "  has  died  of  grief. 

Just  so  another  prouder  horse, 

Whose  master  had  run  off  the  course, 

So  deeply  mortified  was  he, 

He  sought  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 

By  plunging  in  the  river's  bed, 

And  that  proud  horse,  he,  too,  is  dead. 

During  the  March  term,  1876,  at  Norwich,  I  had  one  of 
my  not  infrequent  dinners  at  Judge  Foster's.  I  find  this  note 
in  my  book:  "  Had  a  very  pleasant  dinner  party  at  Judge 
Foster's,  consisting  of  Judge  Loomis,  who  is  staying  with 
Judge  Foster,  Judge  Pardee,  and  myself,  Mrs.  Foster  being 
the  only  lady  present.  Mr.  Halsey  was  invited,  but  was  not 
able  to  come.  Nobody  does  up  such  hospitalities  quite  so 
handsomely  as  Judge  and  Mrs.  Foster."  The  judge  was  liv- 
ing very  handsomely  in  a  fine  residence  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
city. 

Judge  Foster  had  a  remarkable  verbal  memory,  and  was 
able  to  quote  largely  from  the  standard  poets  and  the  English 
and  Latin  classics,  greatly  enlivening  his  conversation,  which 
was  always  brilliant,  by  the  most  apposite  quotations.  Dur- 
ing the  September  term  of  the  court  in  Bridgeport  in  1876 
one  of  the  counsel  in  arguing  a  case  quoted  the  well-known 
passage,  "  The  discretion  of  the  judge  is  the  law  of  tyrants," 
and  ascribed  it  to  Lord  Brougham.  After  he  had  finished  his 
argument,  Judge  Foster  called  his  attention  to  his  error  in 
ascribing  the  passage  to  Lord  Brougham  instead  of  Lord 
Camden,  and  then  gave  the  entire  paragraph  from  memory, 
as  follows:  "  The  discretion  of  a  judge  is  the  law  of  tyrants. 
It  is  different  in  different  men.  It  is  casual,  and  depends 
upon  constitution,  temper,  and  passion.  In  the  best  it  is 


144 


REMINISCENCES. 


oftentimes  caprice;  in  the  worst  it  is  every  vice,  folly,  and  pas- 
sion to  which  human  nature  is  liable." 

Judge  Foster  retired  on  the  I3th  of  November,  1876,  hav- 
ing attained  the  age  of  seventy.  I  find  this  note  with  regard 
to  the  matter  in  my  book:  "  Judge  Foster's  retirement  is  a 
cause  of  general  regret,  and  to  me  of  absolute  sorrow ;  I  have 
come  to  feel  so  great  an  attachment  for  him  and  to  enjoy  his 
society  so  much." 

I  find  this  note  in  my  note-book,  under  date  of  May  30, 
1877,  the  May  term  of  the  court  at  Litchfield  having  closed 
the  day  before :  "  The  judges  and  reporter  spent  all  the  fore- 
noon in  looking  over  the  magnificent  '  Echo  Farm '  of  Mr. 
Starr,  a  mile  east  of  the  village  of  Litchfield,  upon  his  invita- 
tion, partaking  of  a  very  nice  collation  of  coffee,  ice-cream,  and 
cake  just  before  we  left.  The  farm  is  very  interesting  —  mag- 
nificent improvements,  splendid  stock,  the  finest  of  farm-build- 
ings and  machinery.  Mr.  Starr  is  wealthy  and  an  earnest 
Christian  man.  It  was  a  visit  of  great  interest  to  me." 

At  the  January  term  in  Hartford  in  the  year  1878  I  have 
a  note  of  the  attendance  of  the  court  upon  the  inauguration  of 
Governor  Hubbard.  It  was  the  last  session  of  the  General 
Assembly  in  the  old  State  House,  and  near  the  last  of  the  ses- 
sion of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  court-room  there.  The 
judges  went  up  to  the  Representatives'  Hall  over  the  court- 
room in  a  body,  with  the  reporter  and  clerk  of  the  court,  the 
sheriff  preceding,  and  took  seats  that  had  been  reserved 
near  the  speaker's  desk.  Lieutenant-Governor  Loomis  pre- 
sided over  the  joint  convention  of  the  two  houses,  Speaker 
Briscoe  sitting  by  his  side.  The  governor  soon  came  in  with 
his  staff,  the  latter  in  full  military  dress,  and  after  a  prayer  by 
Rev.  Mr.  Parker  of  the  South  Church,  Governor  Hubbard 
read  his  message,  a  most  admirable  document.  A  little  be- 
fore five  the  judges  returned  to  the  court-room  and  proceeded 
with  a  hearing  that  had  been  suspended.  My  admiration  and 
affection  for  Governor  Hubbard  made  the  occasion  one  of 
great  interest  to  me. 

During  the  same  term  at  Hartford,  the  judges  and  reporter 
were  invited  to  go  at  2  o'clock  to  Colt's  Pistol  Factory  to  see 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP. 


145 


the  operation  of  the  Catling  gun,  then  gaining  great  notoriety, 
under  the  explanation  of  Dr.  Catling,  the  inventor.  Carriages 
were  furnished  for  us  and  we  went  down  after  dinner,  getting 
back  at  twenty-minutes  before  four.  We  were  greatly  in- 
terested in  observing  the  working  of  the  gun  and  hearing  the 
explanations. 

At  the  January  term  in  Hartford  in  1879  tne  Supreme 
Court  met  for  the  first  time  in  its  fine  hall  in  the  new  capitol  — 
a  large  and  elegant  room.  Rev.  Mr.  Twichell  of  Hartford 
opened  the  session  with  a  dedicatory  prayer. 

The  term  at  Bridgeport  in  October,  1880,  was  made  pain- 
fully memorable  by  the  fact  that  Judge  Carpenter  had  just  had 
a  stroke  of  paralysis,  and  was  lying  in  a  critical  condition. 
Judge  Hovey  of  the  Superior  Court  was  called  in  to  sit  in  his 
place. 

At  the  term  held  at  Hartford  in  May,  1882,  the  celebrated 
case  of  Mary  Hall's  application  for  admission  to  the  bar  was 
argued  and  decided.  This  was  but  fifteen  years  ago,  and  yet 
such  is  the  progress  of  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  opening 
all  professional  and  industrial  pursuits  to  women  that  such  an 
application  would  now  encounter  little  opposition,  and  per- 
haps attract  but  little  attention.  It  was  then  regarded  as  of 
very  doubtful  result.  Many  lawyers  who  would  not  have  ob- 
jected to  the  enactment  by  the  legislature  of  a  law  authorizing 
the  admitting  of  women  to  the  bar,  were  yet  very  strongly  of  the 
opinion  that  such  a  statute  was  necessary.  It  had  been  so  de- 
cided in  Massachusetts,  in  Illinois,  and  by  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Our  statute  authorizing  the  ad- 
mission of  attorneys  was,  with  no  important  changes,  nearly 
two  hundred  years  old,  and  made  no  distinction  of  sex,  but 
substantially  authorized  the  appointment  of  any  person  found 
qualified.  Of  course  it  was  claimed  that  that  statute  had 
never  contemplated  the  appointment  of  women,  and  this  had 
to  be  conceded.  Miss  Hall  had  been  examined  in  the  regular 
way  by  the  committee  of  the  bar,  who  had  reported  to  the  bar 
that  the  examination  was  satisfactory,  and  the  bar  had  voted 
to  admit  her,  subject  to  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court  on 
the  legal  question  whether,  as  a  woman,  she  could  be  admitted 


146  REMINISCENCES. 

under  the  statute.  The  bar  also  appointed  two  of  its  members 
to  argue  the  case,  Mr.  Thomas  McManus  in  favor  of  the  ap- 
plication, and  Mr.  Goodwin  Collier  against  it.  Judge  Beards- 
ley,  before  whom  the  case  came  in  the  Superior  Court,  reserved 
it  for  the  advice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  When  the  case  came 
on  in  this  court  I  argued  it,  on  behalf  of  Miss  Hall,  with  Mr. 
McManus,  and  Mr.  Collier  made  an  elaborate  argument  on 
the  other  side.  It  was  heard  on  the  5th  of  May,  and  the  judges 
held  it  under  consideration  till  the  ipth  of  July,  when  they  de- 
cided in  her  favor,  Judge  Pardee  alone  dissenting,  and  he  only 
on  the  ground  that  a  new  statute  was  necessary.  The  judges 
who  constituted  the  majority  were  Chief  Justice  Park  and 
Judges  Carpenter  and  Loomis.  Judge  Beardsley  of  the 
Superior  Court,  who  sat  at  this  term  in  place  of  Judge  Granger, 
who  was  unable  to  attend,  was  absent  during  the  argument  of 
this  case,  but  told  me  afterward  that  if  he  had  been  present  he 
should  have  been  in  favor  of  granting  Miss  Hall's  application. 
This  decision  was  a  great  step  in  the  direction  of  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  rights  of  women. 

In  June,  1891,  Judge  Loomis  retired,  having  reached  the 
age  of  seventy.  He  resided  in  Rockville,  in  Tolland  County, 
and  the  bar  of  that  county  gave  him  a  banquet  in  Rockville  at 
which  the  other  judges  and  the  reporter  were  invited,  and  a 
large  number  of  the  older  lawyers  from  the  other  counties. 
Mr.  B.  H.  Bill  presided,  and  after  a  very  handsome  opening  ad- 
dress presented  Judge  Loomis,  who  spoke  as  follows : 

Mr.  President  and  my  Brethren  of  the  Bench  and  Bar: 

I  wish  I  could  frame  my  response  in  as  elegant  a  manner  as  the  reso- 
lutions just  presented  have  been  framed  and  engrossed  by  the  Tolland 
County  Bar.  I  heartily  thank  its  members  for  this  beautiful  testi- 
monial, and  I  thank  you  all  for  this  striking  manifestation  of  your 
affection  and  esteem,  which  has  deeply  touched  my  heart  and  kindled  a 
gratitude  that  can  never  grow  cold.  I  also  owe  you  many  thanks  for 
your  kindness  in  the  past.  During  the  twenty-seven  years  that  I  have 
continuously  occupied  a  seat  upon  the  bench.  I  have  been  treated  with 
great  consideration  and  respect  by  all  the  members,  young  and  old, 
of  the  bar  of  the  state,  and  by  all  my  brother  judges  without  a  solitary 
exception.  Whatever  measure  of  success  I  may  have  attained  on  the 
judiciary,  I  owe  in  no  small  degree  to  the  stimulus  and  encourage- 
ment you  have  thus  afforded.  And  yet,  while  I  confess  the  pleasure 


SOME  INCIDENTS   OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP. 


147 


and  satisfaction  your  kind  appreciation  has  given  and  will  give  me 
during  the  remainder  of  my  life,  I  feel  unworthy  the  high  praise  you 
have  so  freely  bestowed. 

I  have  always  carried  in  my  mind  a  lofty  ideal  of  what  a  judge  should 
be,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  I  have  felt  an  humiliating  consciousness  of 
falling  far  short  of  my  ideal;  and  were  I  called  upon  to  decide  the 
question,  I  should  have  to  find  that  your  commendation  fits  the  ideal 
judge  better  than  the  real  one.  My  ideal  judge  is  one  possessing  rich 
and  varied  stores  of  learning;  a  conscience  void  of  offense  toward 
God  and  man;  a  patient  judgment,  unclouded  by  prejudice  or  passion; 
a  love  of  truth  whatever  it  may  be  as  it  comes  from  the  lips  of  witnesses 
or  from  books  of  the  law;  and  a  moral  courage  that  disdains  the  least 
intimidation,  and  rejects  as  unlawful  intrusion  all  outside  advice  or 
influence  not  fairly  belonging  to  the  case.  This  last  qualification  was 
grandly  illustrated  by  Lord  Chief  Justice  Coke,  who,  in  the  reign  of 
James  the  First,  resisted  so  manfully  the  unjust  assumption  of  kingly 
prerogative.  The  following  question  was  put  in  behalf  of  the  king 
to  the  judges: 

"  In  a  case  where  the  king  believes  his  perogative  or  interests  con- 
cerned, and  requests  the  judges  to  attend  him  for  their  advice,  might 
they  not  stay  proceedings  till  his  majesty  has  consulted  them?" 

Most  of  the  judges  made  haste  to  say  "  Yes,  yes,  yes,"  but  Chief 
Justice  Coke  said:  "  When  the  case  happens,  I  shall  do  that  which  shall 
be  fit  for  a  judge  to  do!  " 

Could  I  have  realized  the  fond  picture  constantly  in  my  mind  and 
heart,  I  should  have  been  much  better  satisfied  with  my  career  as  a 
judge.  As  my  official  life  work  is  finished  and  all  further  opportunity 
for  me  has  been  foreclosed,  I  now  turn  hopefully  and  confidently  to 
.my  beloved  brethren  still  on  the  bench  to  avoid  my  many  mistakes 
and  to  realize  the  lofty  conceptions  of  the  judicial  office  which  I  have 
portrayed.  I  have  always  had  a  high  regard  for  the  legal  profession, 
and  my  ideal  of  the  true  lawyer  is  almost  identical  with  that  of  the 
judge.  The  lawyer  needs  the  same  rich  stores  of  learning,  the  same 
conscience  and  love  of  truth,  the  same  manliness  and  disdain  of  in- 
timidation. And  having  this  high  conception  of  the  legal  profession, 
I  have  always  combated  the  unreasonable  prejudice  which  has  at 
times  existed  against  it.  This  prejudice  must  have  been  strong  in 
Shakespeare's  time,  as  evidenced  by  the  dialogue  between  Dick,  the 
butcher,  and  Jack  Cade.  Says  Dick,  "  The  first  thing  we  do  let's  kill 
all  the  lawyers."  Says  Cade,  "  Nay,  that  I  mean  to  do.  Is  not  that 
a  lamentable  thing,  that  of  the  skin  of  an  innocent  lamb  should  be  made 
parchment?  That  parchment  being  scribbled  over  should  undo  a 
man.  Some  say  the  bee  stings,  but  I  say  'tis  the  bee's  wax,  for  I  did 
but  seal  once  to  a  thing  and  I  was  never  .mine  own  man  since." 


148  REMINISCENCES. 

Our  own  colonial  records  also  afford  evidence  that  the  general  court 
had  grave  apprehensions  on  account  of  the  prospective  increase  of 
lawyers,  for  in  May,  1729,  an  act  was  passed,  with  a  preamble,  reciting 
that  many  persons  of  late  had  taken  upon  them  to  be  attorneys  at  the 
bar,  so  that  quarrels  and  lawsuits  were  multiplied  and  the  king's 
good  subjects  disturbed,  and  providing  "  that  there  shall  be  in  the 
colony  eleven  attorneys  and  no  more,  viz. :  three  in  the  county  of  Hart- 
ford and  two  in  each  of  the  other  four  counties." 

I  ought  to  remark  that  the  medical  profession  as  well  as  the  legal 
has  been  the  object  of  popular  prejudice,  and  of  a  similar  character. 
Dr.  James  Hamilton  has  said  of  his  profession:  "When  people  are 
ill  they  call  us  in  like  angels,  but  when  they  are  well  they  kick  us  out 
like  devils."  Since  my  admission  to  the  bar  I  have  noticed  with 
pleasure  that  this  prejudice  has  been  gradually  growing  less  and  less, 
till  now  it  has  almost  disappeared. 

In  this  connection  it  may  not  be  inappropriate  to  relate  an  incident 
of  my  early  practice  in  this  town.  As  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
constitution  I  am  approaching  my  legal  dotage,  a  little  legal  anecdotage 
may  be  expected.  When  I  came  to  this  town  in  1847  these  valleys 
and  rocks  had  never  heard  the  voice  of  a  resident  lawyer,  and  as  I 
came  without  any  previous  call  from  the  people  I  was  for  a  time  looked 
at  through  the  blue  haze  of  distrust  and  apprehension.  Soon,  how- 
ever, I  had  a  client,  and  brought  a  suit  before  a  leading  justice  in  the 
Vernon  part  of  the  town.  The  defendant,  true  to  the  instincts  of  the 
people,  scorned  to  employ  a  lawyer,  and  so  he  conducted  his  own  case. 
I  opened  and  closed  the  argument  with  zeal,  if  not  according  to 
knowledge,  and  as  I  sat  down  there  was  a  hush  in  the  room  to  hear 
the  decision.  The  justice  said,  "  I  give  judgment  to  the  plaintiff,"  and 
a  feeling  of  satisfaction  and  pride  was  just  rising  within  when  I  re- 
ceived a  sudden  shower-bath  from  the  stern  utterance  of  the  justice, 
who,  looking  me  in  the  face,  said:  "  I  decide  this  case  for  the  plaintiff, 
but  it  is  not  owing  to  anything  you  have  said,  sir."  I  doubt  whether 
this  incident  can  fairly  be  cited  to  illustrate  an  unreasonable  prejudice 
against  the  legal  profession,  for  I  remember  that,  like  many  a  young 
lawyer  of  that  day,  I  talked  very  loud,  although  I  stood  not  over  four 
or  five  feet  distant  from  the  justice  whom  I  addressed. 

Chief  Justice  Tindall  was  once  asked  whether  he  regarded  a  certain 
person  as  a  sound  lawyer,  and  he  replied:  "  You  raise  a  doubtful  point; 
-whether  roaring  is  unsoundness?  "  With  me  it  was  a  manifest  case 
of  roaring,  but  it  was  sound! 

I  remember  another  thing  also  calculated  to  excite  prejudice;  I 
drew  a  very  long  writ  containing  many  different  counts  for  the  same 
cause  of  action.  I  ought  to  congratulate  myself  for  getting  off  so  well. 

I  was  much  amused  recently  on  reading  the  record  of  a  case  against 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP. 


149 


an  English  lawyer,  decided  in  1596,  who  was  tried  for  using  too  many 
words!  —  a  most  improbable  offense  from  our  standpoint,  especially 
in  the  Supreme  Court,  where  so  much  is  submitted  on  briefs.  The 
record  alluded  to  shows  that  the  offending  barrister  had  made  a  repli- 
cation covering  120  sheets  of  paper,  when  sixteen  would  have  been 
ample.  The  judge  who  called  him  to  account  and  found  these  facts, 
ordered  that  the  offender  be  taken  into  custody,  and  that  a  hole  be  cut 
in  the  replication  and  his  head  thrust  through  the  hole,  and  that  he  be 
led  around  bare-headed  and  bare-footed  with  this  enormous  replication 
hanging  about  his  neck,  written-side  out,  and  that  he  be  set  at  the 
bar  at  each  of  the  three  courts  around  Westminister  Hall,  and  in  addi- 
tion he  was  ordered  to  pay  a  heavy  fine. 

Since  the  passage  of  our  new  Practice  Act,  which  was  designed  to 
simplify  proceedings,  I  have  noticed  that  the  pleadings  are  much 
longer  than  they  were  under  the  common-law  system;  but  there  is  no 
danger,  I  trust,  that  any  pleader  will  equal  the  English  precedent  in  the 
face  of  such  a  warning.  Much  prolixity  comes  from  hasty  work  and 
from  the  feeling  that  too  much  is  always  safer  than  too  little.  This  is 
applicable  to  pleading,  not  to  a  banquet.  Upon  this  principle  a  lawyer 
in  drawing  a  complaint  against  a  common  carrier,  set  forth  the  duty  of 
the  carrier  in  the  words  of  the  law,  that  he  must  carry  safely  and  make 
good  all  losses  except  those  arising  from  the  act  of  God,  etc.;  then  he 
alleged  that  the  loss  was  not  caused  by  the  act  of  the  aforesaid  God, 
but  solely  by  the  act  of  the  defendant.  Our  ideals,  whether  as  judges 
or  lawyers,  make  no  provision  for  mistakes,  but  "  to  err  is  human," 
and  judges  are  as  thoroughly  human  as  lawyers,  and  hence  our  mistakes 
are  many. 

In  my  early  practice  at  the  bar,  there  lived  in  this  town  within  a  mile 
of  the  place  where  we  are,  a  man  by  the  name  of  Bruce,  who  carried  a 
very  homely  person  but  a  very  level  head.  He  often  served  as  juror  — 
usually  as  foreman.  I  brought  a  pauper  case  to  the  County  Court. 
There  was  at  the  time  a  vacancy  in  the  judgeship  of  this  county,  and  a 
judge  from  an  adjoining  county  presided.  Bruce  was  foreman  of  the 
jury;  I  had  perfect  confidence  in  my  case  and  presented  it  as  well  as 
I  could.  But  the  charge  was  directly  against  all  my  positions,  and  I 
thought  I  was  gone  up  sure,  but  felt  some  relief  when  the  jury  re- 
ported that  they  were  not  agreed.  The  judge  warmed  over  his  charge 
again  and  again  and  sent  the  jury  back  for  further  consideration,  till 
they  came  in  the  third  time  still  "  not  agreed,"  when  they  were  dis- 
charged from  the  case.  Anxious  to  know  what  snag  had  got  into  the 
case,  I  asked  some  of  the  jurors  how  they  stood,  and  they  said  they  were 
all  for  the  defendant  except  Bruce;  that  they  tried  hard  to  induce  him  to 
agree  on  a  verdict  for  the  defendant,  telling  him  that  he  was  bound  to 
take  the  law  from  the  court,  but  he  replied  that  he  knew  he  was  bound 


1 50  REMINISCENCES. 

to  take  the  law  from  the  court,  but  he  was  not  bound  to  take  damned 
nonsense! 

I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  state  in  the  Union  where  the  relations  of 
Bench  and  Bar  are  more  agreeable  and  harmonious  than  in  this  state. 
I  hope  and  trust  it  may  always  be  so.  If  a  judge  harbors  ill-will 
towards  counsel  or  counsel  towards  the  judge,  some  injustice  is  the  sure 
result  and  the  dignity  of  the  court  will  be  greatly  impaired. 

Of  course,  a  little  pleasantry  is  permissible,  and  is  not  inconsistent 
with  proper  dignity.  A  case  was  on  trial  before  a  Judge  Green,  when 
counsel  cited  as  an  authority  upon  the  point  in  issue,  "  Browne  on  the 
Statute  of  Frauds,"  but  he  pronounced  the  name  of  the  author, 
Browne-e,  when  the  judge  suggested  that  he  ought  not  to  sound  the 
"  e,"  saying  that  his  own  name  (Greene)  ended  with  an  "  e,"  and  he 
asked  the  lawyer  how  he  would  pronounce  that.  The  lawyer  replied; 
"  That  depends  upon  how  your  honor  decides  this  case." 

Owing  to  the  lateness  of  the  hour  and  the  general  interest  to  hear 
our  distinguished  friends  who  are  present,  I  forbear  making  the  further 
remarks  I  had  contemplated  and  will  only  add  that  in  my  retirement 
I  shall  have  to  forego  the  pleasure  of  your  friendly  greetings  as  often 
as  I  have  heretofore  enjoyed  them.  But  I  shall  keep  you  all  in  fond 
remembrance  and  cherish  to  the  last  hour  of  my  earthly  life  a  lively 
interest  in  everything  affecting  the  honor  and  dignity  of  the  bench 
and  the  bar. 

On  the  5th  of  August,  1891,  occurred  the  golden  wedding 
of  my  wife  and  myself.  I  shall  devote  a  chapter  by  itself  to  this 
occurrence.  The  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  were  holding 
a  meeting  for  consultation  at  the  capitol  all  day,  and  in  the 
afternoon  came  in  a  body  to  the  hall  where  our  friends  were 
gathered,  to  participate  for  an  hour  in  the  festivities  of  the  oc- 
casion. There  were  also  present  ex-Chief  Justice  Park  and 
Judge  Loomis. 

Edward  W.  Seymour,  a  son  of  Chief  Justice  Origen  Sey- 
mour, and  one  of  our  most  eminent  lawyers,  was  appointed 
a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  1889,  and  discharged  his 
judicial  duties  with  great  ability.  On  the  i6th  of  October, 
1892,  he  died  very  suddenly  at  Litchfield  in  the  sixtieth  year 
of  his  age,  after  an  acute  illness  of  only  twenty-four  hours. 
His  funeral  took  place  at  Litchfield,  October  i/th,  and  was 
largely  attended.  My  own  personal  relations  with  him  had  for 
a  long  time  been  very  pleasant,  and  his  death  was  to  me  a  per- 
sonal affliction.  My  wife  went  up  with  me  to  attend  the 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP.        151 

funeral.  A  very  warm  tribute  to  his  memory  was  written 
by  Judge  Fenn  in  a  Winsted  paper,  which  is  well  worth  pre- 
serving and  which  I  copy  here: 

"  Last  Sunday  morning  at  Litchfield  there  passed  from  weekday  toil 
into  Sunday  rest,  from  work  so  consecrated  that  it  was  worship,  into 
eternal  peace,  as  pure  a  soul  and  as  gentle  as  ever  parted  from  earth 
to  enter  heaven.  One  who  speaks  from  a  torn  heart  because  he  loved 
him  living,  and  loves  him  dead;  one  who  met  him  in  delightful  social 
intercourse  four  days  last  week,  the  last  time  on  Friday,  in  seeming 
health,  full  of  life  and  its  interests,  and  to  whom  the  telegram  an- 
nouncing his  sudden  death  came  with  shocking  agony,  can  neither  be 
silent  nor  speak  with  a  calm  dispassionate  utterance,  in  such  an  hour. 
Edward  W.  Seymour  lies  dead  at  the  age  of  sixty  in  the  town  in 
which  he  was  born,  and  on  the  street  where  he  had  always  lived.  The 
oldest  son  of  the  late  Chief  Justice  Origen  S.  Seymour,  he  inherited 
the  rare  judicial  temperament,  the  calm,  candid,  impartial  judgment, 
the  love  of  mercy-tempered  justice,  so  essentially  characteristic  of  his 
father.  Educated  at  Yale  College,  a  graduate  of  the  famous  class  of 
1853,  studying  law  in  his  father's  office,  entering  into  partnership  with 
him,  early  and  frequently  called  to  represent  his  town,  and  later  his 
senatorial  district,  in  the  General  Assembly,  a  useful  member  of  Con- 
gress for  four  years,  having  in  the  meantime,  by  devotion  to  his  pro- 
fession, as  well  as  by  natural  ability,  become  the  acknowledged  leader 
of  the  bar  in  the  two  counties  of  Litchfield  and  Fairfield;  certainly  it 
was  the  principle  of  natural  selection  which,  three  years  ago,  led  to 
his  choice  as  a  member  of  our  highest  judicial  tribunal,  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Errors  of  this  state.  While  of  his  services  upon  that  court 
this  is  neither  the  time  nor  place  to  speak  with  fullness,  it  has  been  the 
privilege  of  the  writer  to  know  them  somewhat  thoroughly,  and  be- 
cause of  such  knowledge  he  can  the  more  truly  bear  witness  to  the 
rare  spirit  of  fidelity  to  duty,  to  justice,  to  law,  as  a  living,  pervading, 
and  beneficent  rule  of  action,  with  which,  whether  upon  the  bench 
listening  to  and  weighing  the  arguments  and  contentions  of  counsel, 
in  private  study,  in  the  consultation  room,  or  in  the  written  opinions 
of  the  court  which  bear  his  name,  the  high  duties  of  that  great  office 
have  been  sacredly  discharged.  When  Chief  Justice  Seymour  died, 
Governor  Richard  D.  Hubbard,  in  a  public  address,  declared:  "  I  think 
we  can  all  say  in  very  truth  and  soberness,  and  with  nothing  of  ex- 
travagance in  eulogy,  that  we  have  just  lost  the  foremost,  undeniably 
the  foremost,  lawyer,  and,  take  him  for  all  in  all,  the  noblest  citizen 
of  our  state."  If  it  be  too  much  to  say  this  of  the  son  whose  years 
were  almost  a  score  less  than  those  of  the  father,  surely  it  is  not  too 
much  to  affirm  that  never  did  son  tread  more  worthily  in  the  footsteps 
of  an  honored  parent,  and  never  did  untimely  death  break  truer 


1 5  2  REMINISCENCES. 

promise  than  this  which  has  deprived  our  state  of  those  years  of 
ripened  usefulness,  which  would  have  made  the  career  of  the  son  as 
fruitful  in  honor  and  all  good,  and  good  to  all,  as  that  of  the  sire. 
But  God  knows  best.  Certainly,  to  him  who  lies  crowned  with  the 
beatitude  of  Christ  upon  the  pure  in  heart,  it  is  well." 

Judge  Fenn,  who  wrote  this  eulogistic  notice  of  his  friend, 
has  been  with  him  in  the  spirit  world  since  the  summer  of  1897. 
So  the  profession  moves  on. 

I  have  referred  in  a  former  chapter  (ante,  p.  128)  to  a  habit 
in  which  I  indulged  myself  in  the  later  years  of  my  reporter- 
ship,  of  taking  a  few  minutes'  nap  at  my  desk  in  the  court- 
room, when  the  room  was  warm  and  the  argument  long  and 
tedious,  and  have  mentioned  there  an  exceedingly  witty  re- 
mark of  Judge  Pardee's  about  it.  This  habit  was  a  subject  of 
frequent  jocose  allusion  on  the  part  of  the  judges,  though  their 
own  occasional  lapses  in  this  respect  saved  me  from  anything 
but  the  most  good-natured  reference  to  it.  I  have  too  often 
seen  even  a  chief  justice  doze  to  feel  any  great  compunction 
about  it.  But  Judge  Granger,  who  was  the  humorist  of  the 
court,  at  least  so  far  as  very  ready  but  rather  uncouth  rhyming 
was  concerned,  would  very  frequently  toss  me  a  squib  about  it 
if  he  happened  to  find  me  napping.  I  generally  handed  him 
up  an  answer.  Some  of  these  squibs  I  find  I  entered  on  my 
note-book.  One  afternoon,  during  a  very  long  and  very 
tedious  argument,  I  fell  into  a  doze  with  my  head  thrown  back 
from  which  I  awoke  myself  by  a  snore.  Immediately  a  paper 
came  down  from  the  bench  with  this  on  it: 

The  clock  pointed  to  the  hour  of  four; 

The  lawyer  read  from  books  of  ancient  lore: 

The  reporter  started  up  and  said,  "  I  snore!  " 

I  at  once  handed  it  back  with  this  written  underneath: 

The  judge  scowled  at  the  lawyer  —  "  What  a  bore!  " 
Then  looked  at  the  reporter  with  "  Encore  "; 
Then  at  the  lawyer  looked  again  and  swore. 

To  this  a  few  minutes  later  came  the  following  rejoinder: 

And  all  the  court  concurred,  and  swore 

That  never  had  there  been  a  bore 

That  on  their  nerves  so  harshly  wore, 

And  wished  that  they  with  John  might  snore. 


SOME  INCIDENTS  OF  MY  REPORTERSHIP. 


153 


On  another  like  occasion  Judge  Granger  sent  me  the  fol- 
lowing lines: 

John  sleeps  a  strong  sleep;  no  snooze  can  be  deeper 
Than  the  slumber  that  falls  on  this  champion  sleeper. 
There  is  none  that  can  beat  him  in  sleeping  by  day, 
Except  the  old  chaps  who  are  mentioned  by  Gray, 
\Yho  sleep  'neath  the  shade  of  the  elm  and  the  yew, 
Unmindful  of  sunlight  and  moonlight  and  dew, 
And  heed  not  the  fall  of  a  state  or  a  star; 
So  John  sleeps  along  midst  the  din  of  the  bar. 

I  scribbled  the  following  reply,  and  handed  it  to  Judge 
Granger.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  he  was  an  enormous 
smoker,  always  (except  when  sitting  in  court)  having  a  cigar 
in  his  mouth ;  also  that  he  was  a  great  card  player,  and  that  he 
was  immensely  fond  of  stories  and  jokes;  and  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  he  had  no  fondness  for  hard  thinking: 

In  an  easy  arm  chair  sits 

Judge  Granger  when  at  home; 
Turning  his  feeble  wits 
To  this  and  that  by  fits, 

Wherever   they    choose   to    roam, 

Now  law,  now  cards,  and  now  and  then  a  "  pome  "; 
With  frequent  savory  drinks, 
And  most  unsavory  jokes; 

One  thing  never, 
He  never  thinks; 

One  thing  ever, 
He  ever  smokes. 

Xot  long  after  this  I  caught  Judge  Granger  in  a  sound 
sleep  in  his  seat  with  the  judges,  and  drew  a  likeness  of  him  as 
he  lay  back  with  his  mouth  open,  his  appearance  presenting  a 
most  tempting  object  for  a  caricaturist.  Underneath  it  I 
wrote,  "  Taking  a  Judicial  Attitude,"  and  on  his  waking  I 
handed  it  to  him. 

On  a  later  occasion  he  handed  me  down  the  following 
lines,  signing  them  "  Hans  Breitman  ": 

Oh.  Shonny,  how  you  vas? 
Yy  dond  you  gone  to  sleep? 
Your  hies  dey  seem  to  vink 
Shust  like  you  took  some  trink. 
ii 


1 5  4  REMINISCENCES. 

I  dinks  you  petter  sthop 
And  take  von  leedle  naps, 
'Twill  petter  make  you  veel, 
Shust  like  some  Scheidam  Schnaps. 

I  might  add  many  more  extracts  from  my  note-book  of  the 
same  general  character  with  those  I  have  given,  but  I  have  al- 
ready made  my  chapter  too  long.  It  has  saddened  me  very 
much  as  I  have  looked  over  my  notes  of  the  arguments  of 
counsel  and  the  decisions  of  the  judges,  with  my  record  of  in- 
cidents of  interest,  to  see  how  almost  all  the  lawyers  and 
judges  have  gone  over  to  the  majority.  Judge  Granger  has 
been  in  his  grave  for  nearly  three  years,  and  not  one  of  the 
judges  of  ten  years  ago  is  now  living  except  Judge  Loomis, 
who  several  years  ago  retired  and  is  now  spending  his  old  age 
near  me  at  Hartford.  Not  one  of  the  judges,  and  I  think  but 
three  of  the  more  recent  lawyers,  lived  to  my  present  age  (82, 
April,  1898).  John  T.  Wait  of  Norwich  is  my  senior  by  about 
three  years.  With  this  exception,  I  am  now  the  oldest  lawyer 
in  the  state,  and  I  have  for  several  years  been  the  senior  member 
of  the  Hartford  bar.  My  long  life  as  reporter  of  the  court  has 
been  an  exceedingly  pleasant  one,  free  from  the  anxiety  that 
counsel  feel  in  the  trial  of  their  causes,  and  from  the  responsi- 
bility that  lies  heavily  upon  the  judges,  while  the  social  life  was 
very  enjoyable.  There  could  not  be  better  company  than  that 
of  the  judges,  especially  in  their  consulting  room  and  at  the 
tables  of  the  hotels,  while  the  cordiality  of  the  members  of  the 
bar  throughout  the  state,  with  their  occasional  elegant  hospi- 
tality, brought  a  large  element  of  the  holiday  into  my  working 
life.  To  one  who  is  educated  to  the  law,  and  who  takes  readily 
to  fine  critical  work,  is  satisfied  with  a  fair  salary,  and  has  no 
great  ambition  fora  leading  position  and  for  fame,  I  know  of  no 
more  satisfactory  life  than  that  of  a  reporter  of  a  Supreme  Court 
—  a  life  very  satisfactory  as  it  passes  and  very  satisfactory  to 
look  back  upon.  I  count  it  a  felicity  to  have  been  called  by 
Providence  to  the  very  place  that  I  filled  for  so  many  years,  and 
which  I  retired  from  when  seventy-eight  years  old,  against  the 
urgent  request  of  the  judges  that  I  should  continue  still  longer 
in  the  office. 


SOME   OF  MY  JUDICIAL  FRIENDS.  155 

SOME  OF  MY  JUDICIAL  FRIENDS. 

During  the  thirty-six  years  that  I  held  the  office  of  reporter 
of  judicial  decisions  I  was  on  the  most  friendly  terms  with  all 
the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court.  I  have  spoken  in  the  last 
chapter  of  our  very  pleasant  personal  relations.  With  Judge 
Carpenter  and  Judge  Loomis,  who  for  many  years  lived  in  the 
same  city  with  me,  and  who  both  retired  some  time  before  I  did, 
I  kept  up  a  constant  and  very  enjoyable  intercourse.  The 
former  died  in  the  spring  of  1897,  and  Judge  Loomis  is  now  the 
last  survivor  of  that  pleasant  company.  He  lives  near  me,  and 
it  is  one  of  the  pleasures  of  my  old  age  to  chat  with  him.  But 
there  were  several  other  judges  w:ith  whom  I  had  a  delightful 
intimacy.  There  are  obituary  sketches  of  them  all  in  the  law 
reports,  most  of  them  prepared  by  me,  but  in  my  brief  notice 
of  them  here  I  intend  to  speak  only  of  their  personal  qualities, 
those  traits  that  specially  drew  me  to  them,  and  which  led  them 
to  a  ready  appreciation,  very  likely  an  over-appreciation,  of 
those  qualities  in  me  which  commended  me  to  their  special 
favor. 

JUDGE  DAVID  C.  SANFORD  was  the  first  of  the  judges  to 
whom  my  heart  went  out  with  a  real  affection.  He  was  elected 
to  the  Supreme  Court  in  1854,  and  was,  therefore,  on  the  bench 
when  I  became  its  reporter  in  1858.  He  died  in  1864,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-six,  after  ten  years  of  judicial  life.  During  that 
time  he  did  excellent  service  as  a  judge,  and  acquired  in  the 
highest  degree  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  profession 
and  the  public.  But  it  was  the  moral  side  of  his  character 
that  specially  drew  me  to  him.  He  abhorred  all  wrong  doing 
and  every  transaction  that  bore  any  taint  of  fraud  or  even  of 
unfairness.  It  was  so  hard  for  him  to  conceive  why  any  man 
should  do  wrong  that  he  was  regarded  as  sometimes  too 
severe  in  inflicting  upon  criminals  the  penalties  of  the  law. 
Liquor  selling  stood  high  with  him,  as  with  me,  on  the  list  of 
crimes.  But  in  his  social  intercourse  he  was  the  most  kindly 
of  men.  I  have  often  partaken  of  the  hospitality  of  his  delight- 
ful home  in  New  Milford.  Indeed,  an  intimacy  grew  up  be- 
tween our  families  that  was  a  source  of  great  pleasure  to  us 
both.  He  was  a  singularly  handsome  man,  yet  seemed  hardly 


156  REMINISCENCES. 

conscious  of  it.  He  was  very  modest  and  unassuming,  deferen- 
tial in  his  manners,  and  very  quiet  in  his  demeanor.  He  was 
not  a  brilliant  man,  nor  of  commanding  ability,  but  as  a  judge 
he  brought  to  the  service  of  the  public  an  honest  mind,  great 
patience  in  hearing  cases,  and  thoroughness  of  investigation 
and  consideration  in  deciding  them.  We  felt  that  on  great 
moral  questions  we  stood  side  by  side.  As  we  met  and  shook 
hands  it  seemed  as  if  we  were  exchanging  salutations  as  mem- 
bers of  a  brotherhood  that  the  world  knew  little  of,  but  which 
we  ourselves  understood  very  well. 

I  find  in  my  notebook  under  date  of  October  7,  1862,  this 
little  entry  with  regard  to  a  visit  at  his  house.  The  court  had 
just  closed  a  session  at  Danbury  for  Fairfield  County :  "  I 
rode  from  Danbury  to  New  Milford  on  Tuesday  evening  with 
Judge  Sanford,  and  spent  the  n!  it  and  the  next  forenoon  at 
his  house.  I  had  a  very  pleasant  visit.  I  thank  God  for  such 
Christian  men  and  Christian  families.  They  are  the  salt  of 
the  earth." 

It  was  in  the  quiet  of  domestic  life  that  his  character  dis- 
closed itself  in  its  greatest  beauty.  He  loved  his  home.  The 
ambitions  of  men  he  knew  little  of.  Indefatigable  in  the  dis- 
charge of  those  public  duties  which  so  frequently  called  him 
from  home,  he  returned  thither  with  a  love  \vhich  no  honors 
of  public  life  could  impair.  His  thoughts  lingered  about  the 
earth  as  he  was  departing  from  it  only  because  of  those  so  dear 
to  him  whom  he  left  behind.  On  his  deathbed  he  said  to  his 
pastor:  "  The  fear  of  death  has  passed  away,  and  all  my 
attachments  to  the  world  are  broken ;  the  only  remaining  affec- 
tion I  have  is  for  those  I  love  best,  and  it  is  hard  for  one  to  de- 
part who  is  bound  to  earth  by  such  ties  as  I  am."  While  he 
lay  sinking  gradually  and  waiting  for  death  he  said,  "  How 
gently  Christ  is  leading  me,"  and  again  and  repeatedly  re- 
marked, "  How  gently  I  am  let  down."  His  family  told  me, 
after  his  death,  that  while  he  thus  lay  waiting,  he  said,  "  Give 
my  love  to  John  Hooker."  His  affectionate  remembrance  of 
me  when  the  earth  was  receding  from  his  vision  has  ever  since 
dwelt  with  me  as  a  great  benediction. 

I  wrote  an  obituary  sketch  of  Judge  Sanford  for  the  32d 
volume  of  the  Connecticut  Law  Reports.  With  its  closing 
paragraph  I  close  this  brief  notice  of  my  friend: 


SOME   OF  MY  JUDICIAL  FRIENDS.  157 

I  knew  him  intimately,  and  know  that  he  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  leave  behind  him  the  record  of  a  true  Christian  life 
rather  than  that  of  an  able  and  honored  judge,  and  that  these 
pages  should  express  and  perpetuate  his  tribute  to  Christian  faith 
rather  than  ours  to  his  honored  memory.  It  is  the  happiness  of 
the  writer  that,  in  making  it  a  tribute  to  both,  he  can  indulge  his 
own  love  for  the  man  and  for  the  faith  which  adorned  his  life. 

JUDGE  LAFAYETTE  S.  FOSTER  was  one  of  my  special  friends. 
He  was  at  almost  every  point  unlike  Judge  Sanford,  yet  both 
were  very  dear  friends.  Judge  Foster  was  an  elegant  gentle- 
man, a  man  of  the  world,  familiar  with  public  men  and  pub- 
lic positions,  a  brilliant  conversationalist,  and  an  able  and 
impressive  public  speaker.  He  had  three  times  in  his  early 
professional  life  been  the  speaker  of  our  state  House  01  Repre- 
sentatives, had  been  in  large  professional  practice  in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  state,  and  for  the  twelve  years  before  he  took  a  seat 
on  our  Supreme  Court  had  been  a  senator  in  Congress  from 
this  state,  and  for  a  part  of  the  time  the  president  pro  tern  of  the 
senate.  He  enjoyed  public  office  and  his  intercourse  with 
public  men.  With  all  this  he  was  a  man  of  the  highest  moral 
tone  and  unapproachable  by  any  corrupting  influence.  I  had 
known  him  in  a  general  way  for  several  years,  but  it  was  not 
till  he  came  upon  the  court  in  1870  that  I  became  intimately 
acquainted  with  him.  He  was  at  that  time  sixty-four  years  old. 
I  was  ten  years  younger. 

Judge  Foster  had  just  before  married  as  his  second  wife 
Miss  Martha  P.  Lyman  of  Northampton.  She  wras  a  woman 
of  striking  personal  beauty  and  of  great  elegance  of  figure.  I 
have  rarely  seen  a  woman  to  whom  could  better  be  applied  the 
words  "  Incedo  regina,"  which  Virgil  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  Juno.  A  pleasant  little  incident  with  regard  to  her 
occurs  to  me,  which  ought  to  be  preserved.  It  was  prior 
to  her  marriage  to  Judge  Foster.  A  man  was  on  trial  in 
the  Superior  Court  at  Hartford  for  murder,  and  during  an  inter- 
mission of  the  trial  she  came  into  the  court-room  with  a  gentle- 
man friend.  A  few  of  the  lawyers  who  were  idling  there  knew 
her,  and  came  up  to  greet  her,  and  among  them  was  Thomas 
Perkins,  who  was  one  of  her  special  admirers.  As  we  gathered 
about  her  Mr.  Perkins  said,  "  Here  is  a  poor  fellow  who  has 


1 5  8  REMINISCENCES. 

killed  one  man,  and  is  put  on  a  trial  for  his  life  for  it,  but  Miss 
Lyman  counts  her  victims  by  the  score  and  no  one  thinks  of 
putting  her  on  trial."  Said  another,  "  But  the  law  requires 
that  she  be  tried  by  her  peers;  pray  where  will  you  find  her 
peers?  "  "  Oh  (said  Mr.  Perkins),  the  nine  muses  and  the 
three  graces  would  just  make  a  panel."  "  Ah  (said  the  other), 
but  they  would  be  disqualified  by  envy." 

When  Judge  Foster  came  upon  the  Supreme  Court  we 
found  our  way  to  each  other  very  soon.  Aside  from  our 
official  relation  we  got  up  a  little  fraternity  of  our  own.  When 
the  court  sat  at  Norwich  he  often  took  me  home  to  dine  with 
him,  and  frequently  got  up  an  elegant  dinner  for  all  the  judges. 
His  long  life  at  Washington,  which  his  wife  had  shared  with 
him,  had  enabled  them  to  entertain  their  guests  with  great  ele- 
gance. When  the  court  sat  in  the  other  counties  my  seat  at  the 
hotel  table  was  always  next  to  his,  except  when  his  wife  was 
with  him,  when  she  sat  next  to  the  judge  and  I  next  to  her. 
I  remember  at  one  time  at  Bridgeport,  one  of  our  busiest 
little  cities,  she  came  in  from  a  walk  and  sat  down  to  dinner. 
I  asked  her  where  she  had  been.  She  said  she  had  been  about 
the  city,  and  that  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  nothing  was  going  on. 
"  Oh,  Mrs.  Foster  (said  I),  it  may  have  seemed  so  to  you,  but 
it  was  only  because  everybody  suspended  business  as  you 
went  by." 

Judge  Foster  was  a  graduate  of  Brown  University  at  Provi- 
dence in  the  class  of  1828,  and  took  the  highest  honors  of  his 
class.  He  brought  from  his  classical  studies  a  mind  fraught 
with  classical  associations,  which  were  always  at  his  service, 
though  never  brought  obtrusively  into  his  conversation. 
Whenever  the  judges  dined  out  together  he  was  always  the 
elegant  man  of  the  party,  elegant  in  presence  and  manner  and 
speech.  Yet  he  had  no  affectation  of  manner,  nor  any  assump- 
tion of  superiority.  He  was  very  appreciative  of  everything 
bright  in  others  and  very  responsive  to  others'  wit,  but  he  was 
always  a  good  listener  and  never  an  intrusive  talker.  In  Eng- 
land he  would  have  been  accepted  as  the  finest  specimen  of  an 
English  nobleman.  He  had  the  best  qualities  of  an  English 
courtier,  but  without  a  particle  of  the  flexible  morality  that  is 
so  generally  imputed  to  that  class  of  men. 


SOME   OF  MY  JUDICIAL  FRIENDS.  159 

I  have  mentioned  in  a  former  chapter  (ante,  p.  143)  an  in- 
stance of  his  recitation  of  a  long  paragraph  from  Lord  Somers. 
He  was  always  able  to  correct  the  errors  of  the  rest  of  us  in 
any  matter  from  the  English  classics,  and  to  supply  for  us  any 
passage  that  we  needed,  and  yet  always  without  a  particle  of 
pedantry  or  any  apparent  consciousness  that  he  had  done  any- 
thing worth  noticing. 

Judge  Foster  retired  from  the  court  in  18/6,  on  attaining 
the  age  of  seventy.  He  died  four  years  later  of  a  congestive 
chill,  after  an  illness  of  only  two  days.  He  had  been  in  fine 
health  and  I  had  reckoned  confidently  on  his  living  to  a  good 
old  age.  I  had  thought  that  in  the  leisure  of  our  closing  years 
we  should  be  much  together,  he  renewing  the  bright  talk  of  the 
years  gone  by,  and  I  listening  to  the  stories,  of  which  his  mem- 
ory was  full,  of  the  events  of  an  eventful  professional  and  public 
life.  His  knowledge  of  public  men  was  very  extensive  and  no 
man  could  tell  better  what  he  had  seen  and  known  of  them.  It 
is  now  eighteen  years  since  I  have  heard  that  voice  to  whose 
accents  I  listened  with  so  much  interest  and  affection.  It  is 
a  great  comfort  to  know  that  I  shall  before  long  hear  it  again. 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  ORIGEN  S.  SEYMOUR  was  one  of  the  judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court  to  whom  I  became  greatly  attached.  He 
was  born  in  1804,  and  died  in  1881,  in  the  seventy-eighth  year 
of  his  age,  having  retired  from  judicial  life  eight  years  before 
on  reaching  the  constitutional  limit  of  seventy  years.  He  was 
born  and  always  lived  in  Litchfield,  the  county  seat  of  the  most 
picturesque  county  in  the  state.  He  loved  its  mountains  and 
forests  and  lakes,  and  no  less  the  plain  and  sturdy  people  who 
lived  upon  its  hills.  He  had  a  great  love  of  nature.  The 
beautiful  landscape  on  which  he  daily  looked  was  like  daily 
food  to  him.  There  were  few  things  that  he  enjoyed  more  than 
driving  with  friends  over  the  charming  region  about  Litchfield 
and  calling  their  attention  to  the  beauty  of  the  scenery.  He 
loved  flowers.  His  growing  crops,  the  ripening  fruit  upon  his 
trees,  were  watched  by  him  with  less  of  pecuniary  interest  than 
of  almost  poetic  enthusiasm. 

\Yhile  possessed  of  a  rare  knowledge  of  law  and  of  almost 
unerring  judgment  in  the  administration  of  it,  it  was  the  mani- 
fest kindness  of  his  heart  that  brought  so  many  men  to 


160  REMINISCENCES. 

love  him.  He  was  wholly  without  pretension.  He  was  never 
opinionated.  He  had  no  self-assertion.  It  would  hardly  be 
possible  for  one  to  be  more  unassuming  than  he.  It  was  in 
a  great  measure  this  lack  of  all  assumption  tftat  gave  him  such 
a  hold  upon  the  people  about  him.  Juries  always  trusted  him 
when  at  the  bar.  All  who  knew  him  felt  certain  of  him  as  a 
man  of  "  simplicity  and  godly  sincerity."  His  simplicity  of 
manner  was  but  the  natural  garb  of  the  simplicity  of  his  heart. 
Yet,  with  all  this  he  had  a  rare  shrewdness.  He  was  a  good 
judge  of  human  character  and  motives.  He  could  not  be  im- 
posed upon  by  pretenses  and  plausibilities.  He  saw  through 
such  artifices  as  quickly  as  through  sophistries  in  argument. 

It  was  his  general  custom  before  he  came  upon  the  court, 
and  while  a  member  of  it,  to  entertain  the  judges  and  reporter 
at  a  bountiful  supper  at  his  house,  where  we  met  his  wife  and 
family.  These  were  very  enjoyable  and  memorable  occasions. 
When  the  court  sat  at  Litchfield  I  frequently  took  my  wife  with 
me  to  enjoy  a  visit  there.  She  was  born  in  Litchfield,  Rev. 
Dr.  Beecher  being  at  that  time  settled  over  the  Congregational 
church  there.  Judge  Seymour  was  an  Episcopalian,  but  had 
been  a  warm  friend  of  Dr.  Beecher,  and  always  had  a  warm 
welcome  for  any  of  his  family. 

I  conclude  this  sketch  of  the  judge  by  quoting  the  closing 
paragraph  of  a  sketch  of  him  which  I  wrote  soon  after  his  death 
for  the  48th  volume  of  the  Connecticut  Law  Reports.  It  tells 
of  his  golden  wedding  in  1880,  a  memorable  occasion,  which 
my  wife  and  I  attended  with  great  interest. 

On  the  5th  day  of  October,  1880,  Judge  Seymour  and  his  wife 
celebrated  their  golden  wedding  amidst  their  relatives  and  friends, 
many  attending  from  all  parts  of  the  state  and  some  from  other 
states.  The  occasion  was  one  of  exceeding  interest.  It  brought 
into  deserved  notice,  the  charming  home  life  which,  with  its  sup- 
port and  solace  and  inspiration,  had  underlain  his  laborious  pro- 
fessional and  public  life.  Throughout  the  day,  which  was  hallowed 
by  a  tender  and  impressive  communion  service  at  the  church  in 
the  morning,  the  venerable  pair,  serene  and  saintly,  received  the 
homage  of  reverence  and  affection  ;  while  Nature,  loved  by  them 
both,  seemed  eager  to  show  her  gratitude  by  an  unmeasured 
tirbute  of  flowers.  The  autumn  day  was  suggestive  of  the  reced- 


SOME   OF  MY  JUDICIAL  FRIENDS.  161 

ing  year  and  of  ripened  lives,  and  to  him  it  proved  far  more  than 
the  golden  bound  of  the  half  century.  Before  the  next  autumn 
came  he  had  passed,  in  the  beauty  of  his  life's  completeness,  from 
the  earthly  into  the  eternal  years. 

JUDGE  DWIGHT  W.  PARDEE  was  the  last  of  my  judicial 
friends  with  whom  I  came  into  a  special  companionship.  He 
was  six  years  younger  than  I.  He  came  upon  the  Supreme 
Court  in  1873,  served  two  terms  of  eight  years  each,  and  re- 
tired at  the  end  of  his  second  term  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight. 
He  died  four  years  later  at  the  age  of  seventy-two.  It  was  in 
the  early  part  of  his  term  that  both  Judge  Seymour  and  Judge 
Foster  had  retired,  each  dying  soon  after.  Thus  he  was  on  the 
court  for  sixteen  years  during  my  term  as  reporter.  He  lived 
at  Hartford,  not  far  from  the  capitol,  in  which  I  had  my  office, 
and  was  very  frequently  at  my  room,  partly  as  a  matter  of 
friendship,  but  mainly  to  talk  over  his  cases  with  me.  He 
rarely  failed  to  come  in  and  read  to  me  the  opinions  he  had 
written,  and  to  ask  for  my  close  attention  and  criticism.  He 
was  a  very  able  judge,  but  yet  had  a  great  desire  to  see  how 
what  he  wrote  would  strike  another  mind  familiar  with  the 
case.  After  his  death  I  wrote  a  sketch  of  him  for  the  law  re- 
ports, which  appears  in  volume  sixty-three  of  Connecticut  Re-r 
ports. 

I  intended,  in  these  notices  of  my  judicial  friends,  to  speak 
only  of  their  moral  and  social  qualities  and  particularly  of  those 
traits  of  character  which  specially  attracted  me,  but  Judge 
Pardee  was  a  man  of  so  great  ability  as  a  judge  and  of  so  fine 
intellectual  qualities  that  I  depart  from  my  rule  so  far  as  to 
give  a  passage  from  my  sketch  of  him  which  particularly  de- 
scribes him  in  these  higher  relations. 

Judge  Pardee  had  in  a  high  degree  the  judicial  faculty.  He 
was  never  embarrassed  by  the  complicated  facts  that  overweight 
so  many  of  the  eases  that  go  to  our  higher  courts.  He  was  able 
to  precipitate,  as  by  the  touch  of  an  alchemist,  the  questions  of 
law  which  they  held  in  solution.  With  a  quickness  of  apprehen- 
sion, often  thought  incompatible  with  a  proper  judicial  delibera- 
tiveness,  he  had  a  remarkable  soundness  of  practical  judgment 
and  a  great  sense  of  justice.  Though  never  led  astray  by  any 
fondness  for  speculation,  he  had  a  rare  faculty  of  dealing  with 


1 62  REMINISCENCES. 

novel  questions  and  exploring  new  regions  of  legal  inquiry.  He 
had  less  book  learning  than  some  less  able  jiidges,  but  had  a  clear 
comprehension  of  legal  principles  and  a  thorough  mastery  of  the 
law  as  a  science.  His  opinions  are  written  in  language  of  great 
condensation  and  vigor,  which  was  often  epigrammatic  and  quaint 
in  its  incisiveness  and  point,  always  clear,  always  freighted  with 
meaning,  and,  without  being  in  the  slightest  degree  ambitious  or 
inclined  to  be  ornate,  was  yet  of  a  high  literary  quality.  No 
verbiage  ever  burdened  anything  which  he  wrote  or  uttered  ;  no 
weak  word  or  thought  ever  came  from  his  lips  or  his  pen.  He 
was  quiet  in  his  demeanor,  not  at  all  self-assertive  or  demonstra- 
tive, positive  in  his  views,  but  never  aggressive  in  declaring  them, 
a  shrewd  and  intelligent  observer  of  public  men  and  public  affairs, 
but  keeping  his  comments,  sometimes  caustic,  always  keen  and 
racy,  for  private  conversation.  He  had  a  fine  sense  of  humor,  and 
was  often  a  witty  contributor  to  the  entertainment  of  a  dinner 
party  or  a  circle  of  friends,  but  it  was  generally  by  way  of  reply 
to  the  remarks  of  others  and  upon  the  suggestion  of  the  moment. 
He  was  never  a  talker  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  He 
was  of  the  highest  moral  tone.  No  one  ever  imputed  to  him  an  un- 
worthy motive.  He  was  a  man  of  absolute  and  most  scrupulous 
integrity,  and  had  the  unlimited  confidence  of  the  public  as  such. 
He  was  a  liberal  giver  to  worthy  charities  ;  his  gifts,  often  large, 
being  made  where  practicable  in  a  way  to  avoid  public  observa- 
tion. No  man  could  be  more  free  from  ostentation  or  pretense  ; 
none  of  plainer  or  simpler  habits. 

It  was  this  man,  of  keen  observation,  of  shrewd  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  of  sound  judgment,  of  an  eminent  judicial 
faculty,  and,  withal,  of  most  kindly  feeling,  that  I  had  for  my 
near  neighbor  and  very  frequent  companion  for  the  latter 
years  of  my  official  life.  His  house  was  a  pleasant  resort  for 
me,  as  well  as  my  room  a  much-sought  resort  for  him.  It 
is  not  strange  that,  as  earlier  choice  friends  departed,  I  should 
have  come  to  reckon  with  almost  confident  hope  and  with  great 
affection  on  a  continuance  of  our  friendship  for  many  years, 
especially  when  retirement  from  all  business  should  bring  us 
abundant  leisure  for  it.  His  sudden  death  in  1893  was  a  great 
shock  to  me.  I  was  at  that  time  at  the  World's  Fair  at 
Chicago,  and  was  not  able  to  attend  his  funeral. 

My  sketch  of  Judge  Pardee  in  the  law  reports  closes  with 


JUDGE  HUNT  AND  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY'S  TRIAL.  163 

tliis  brief  personal  paragraph,  which  expresses,  better  than  I 
can  in  any  other  way  do,  my  great  affliction  in  his  death : 

The  death  of  Judge  Pardee  gave  to  the  whole  community  a 
sense  of  loss,  but  to  the  writer  of  this  imperfect  sketch  of  him  it 
brought  a  great  personal  bereavement  and  sorrow.  We  had  been 
pleasantly  acquainted  from  our  early  manhood  as  brethren  at  the 
Hartford  bar,  with  a  high  esteem  for  him  on  my  part ;  but  during 
the  sixteen  years  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court,  I 
being  then  its  reporter,  there  grew  up  between  us  a  very  fond 
friendship.  To  no  one,  outside  of  my  own  family,  did  I  look  for 
companionship  in  my  declining  years  so  much  as  to  him.  It  is 
with  a  sense  almost  of  desolation  that  I  think  of  his  returnless 
absence.  And  it  is  among  my  pleasantest  thoughts  that  we  shall 
soon  meet  in  a  renewed  and  abiding  companionship. 


JUDGE  HUNT  AND  THE  TRIAL  OF  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY. 

Susan  B.  Anthony,  the  great  woman  suffrage  advocate  and 
reformer,  was  tried  for  illegally  voting  at  an  election  for  repre- 
sentatives in  Congress  in  1872,  in  the  United  States  Circuit 
Court  at  Canandaigua  in  the  State  of  New  York,  before  Judge 
Hunt  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  His  conduct 
of  the  case  was  so  utterly  against  the  law  and  so  unjust  and  op- 
pressive that  his  name  ought  to  go  down  to  posterity  with  those 
of  Jeffreys  and  other  infamous  judges  who  have  been  pilloried 
by  history.  I  will  do  what  I  can  to  effect  this.  Immediately 
after  the  trial  I  wrote  and  published  the  following  review  of  his 
course,  which  I  insert  in  these  Reminiscences  as  worthy  of  a 
place  here  and  as  putting  on  record  my  abhorrence  of  the 
man.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose  for  a  moment  that  he  could 
have  any  doubt  of  the  well-established  principles  of  law 
which  he  was  setting  at  defiance;  if  he  had  such  doubt,  he  was 
totally  unfit  for  a  place  in  any  respectable  court. 

In  the  recent  trial  of  Susan  B.  Anthony  for  voting  (illegally,  as 
was  claimed,  on  the  ground  that  as  a  woman  she  had  no  right  to 
vote  —  a  point  which  we  do  not  propose  to  consider,  though  we 
have  a  very  positive  opinion  in  favor  of  her  right),  the  course  of 
Judge  Hunt  in  taking  the  case  from  the  jury  and  ordering  a  ver- 
dict of  guilty  to  be  entered  up,  was  so  remarkable,  so  contrary  to 


1 64  REMINISCENSES. 

all  rules  of  law,  and  so  subversive  of  the  system  of  jury  trials  in 
criminal  cases,  that  it  should  not  be  allowed  to  pass  without  an 
emphatic  protest  on  the  part  of  every  public  journal  that  values 
bur  liberties. 

Let  us  first  of  all  see  precisely  what  were  the  facts.  Mis$ 
Anthony  was  charged  with  having  knowingly  voted,  without  law- 
ful right  to  vote,  at  the  congressional  election  in  the  eighth  ward 
of  the  city  of  Rochester,  in  the  state  of  New  York,  in  November, 
1872.  The  act  of  Congress  under  which  the  prosecution  was 
brought  provides  that,  "If,  at  any  election  for  representative  or 
delegate  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  any  person  shall 
"knowingly  personate  and  vote,  or  attempt  to  vote,  in  the  name  of 
any  other  person,  whether  living,  dead,  or  fictitious,  or  vote  more 
than  once  at  the  same  election  for  any  candidate  for  the  same 
office,  or  vote  at  a  place  where  he  may  not  be  lawfully  entitled  to 
vote,  or  vote  without  having  a  lawful  right  to  vote,  every  such 
person  shall  be  deemed  guilty  of  a  crime,"  etc. 

The  trial  took  placfe  at  Canandaigua,  in  the  state  of  New 
York,  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States,  before  Judge 
Hunt,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

The  defendant  pleaded  not  guilty  —  thus  putting  the  govern- 
ment upon  the  proof  of  its  entire  case,  admitting,  however,  that 
she  was  a  woman,  but  admitting  nothing  more. 

The  only  evidence  that  she  voted  at  all,  and  that,  if  at  all, 
she  voted  for  a  representative  in  Congress,  offered^n  the  part  of 
the  government,  was  that  she  handed  four  bits  of  paper,  folded  in 
the  form  of  ballots,  to  the  inspectors,  to  be  placed  in  the  voting 
boxes.  There  was  nothing  on  the  outside  of  these  papers  to  in- 
dicate what  they  were,  and  the  contents  were  not  known  to  the 
witnesses  nor  to  .the  inspectors.  There  were  six  ballot-boxes,  and 
each  elector  had  the  right  to  cast  six  ballots. 

This  evidence  would  undoubtedly  warrant  the  conclusion 
that  Miss  Anthony  voted  for  a  congressional  representative,  the 
fact  probably  appearing,  although  the  papers  before  the  writer  do 
not  show  it,  that  one  of  the  supposed  ballots  was  placed  by  her 
direction  in  the  box  for  votes  for  members  of  Congress.  .  The 
facts  are  thus  minutely  stated,  not  at  all  for  the  purpose  of  ques- 
tioning their  sufficiency,  but  to  show  how  entirely  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  fact,  and  therefore  a  question  for  the  jury. 

Upon  this  evidence  Judge  Hunt  directed  the  clerk  to  enter 
up  a  verdict  of  guilty.  The  counsel  for  the  defendant  interposed, 
but  without  effect,  the  judge  closing  the  discussion  by  saying, 


JUDGE  HUNT  AND  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY'S  TRIAL.  165 

"  Take  the  verdict,  Mr.  Clerk."  The  clerk  then  said,  "  Gentlemen 
of  the  jury,  hearken  to  your  verdict  as  the  court  has  recorded  it; 
You  say  you  find  the  defendant  guilty  of  the  offense  whereof  she 
stands  indicted,  and  so  say  you  all."  To  this  the  jury  made  no 
response,  and  were  immediately  after  dismissed. 

It  is  stated  in  one  of  the  public  papers,  by  a  person  present 
at  the  trial,  that  immediately  after  the  dismissal  of  the  jury  one  of 
the  jurors  said  to  him  that  that  was  not  his  verdict,  nor  that  of 
the  rest,  and  that  if  he  could  have  spoken  he  should  have  an- 
swered "  Not  guilty,"  and  that  the  other  jurors  would  have  sus- 
tained him  in  it.  The  writer  has  no  authority  for  this  statement 
beyond  the  letter  mentioned.  The  juror,  of  course,  had  a  -right, 
when  the  verdict  was  read  by  the  clerk,  to  declare  that  it  was  not 
his  verdict,  but  it  is  not  strange  perhaps  that  an  ordinary  juror, 
with  no  time  to  consider  or  consult  with  his  fellows,  and  probably 
ignorant  of  his  rights  and  in  awe  of  the  court,  should  have  failed 
to  assert  himself  at  such  a  moment. 

Probably  the  assumption  by  the  judge  that  Miss  Anthony  in 
fact  voted  did  her  no  real  injustice,  as  it  was  a  notorious  fact  that 
she  did  vote,  and  claimed  the  right  to  do  so.  But  all  this  made  it 
no  less  an  usurpation  for  the  judge  to  take  the  case  from  the  jury, 
and  order  a  verdict  of  guilty  to  be  entered  up  without  consulting 
them. 

There  was,  however,  a  real  injustice  done  her  by  the  course 
of  the  judge,  inasmuch  as  the  mere  fact  of  her  voting,  and  voting 
unlawfully,  was  not  enough  for  her  conviction.  It  is  a  perfectly 
settled  rule  of  law  that  there  must  exist  an  intention  to  do  an 
illegal  act,  to  make  an  act  a  crime.  It  is,  of  course,  not  necessary 
that  a  person  perpetrating  a  crime  should  have  an  actual  knowl- 
edge of  a  certain  law  which  forbids  the  act,  but  he  must  have  a 
criminal  intent.  Thus,  if  one  is  charged  with  theft,  and  admits 
the  taking  of  the  property,  which  is  clearly  proved  to  have  be- 
longed to  another,  it  is  yet  a  good  defense  that  he  really  believed 
that  he  had  a  right  to  take  it,  or  that  he  took  it  by  mistake.  Just 
so  in  a  case  where,  as  sometimes  occurs,  the  laws  regulating  the 
right  to  vote  in  a  state  are  of  doubtful  meaning,  and  a  voter  is  un- 
certain whether  he  has  a  right  to  vote  in  one  town  or  another, 
and  upon  taking  advice  from  good  counsel,  honestly  makes  up  his 
mind  that  he  has  a  right  to  vote  in  the  town  of  A.  In  this  be- 
lief he  applies  to  the  registrars  of  that  town,  who  upon  the  state- 
ment of  the  facts  are  of  the  opinion  that  he  has  a  right  to  vote 
there,  and  place  his  name  upon  the  list,  and  on  election  day  he 


1 66  REMINISCENCES. 

votes  there  without  objection.  Now,  if  he  should  be  prosecuted 
for  illegal  voting,  it  would  not  be  enough  that  he  acknowledged 
the  fact  of  voting,  and  that  the  judge  was  of  the  opinion  that  his 
view  of  the  law  was  wrong.  There  would  remain  another  and 
most  vital  question  in  the  case,  and  that  is,  did  he  intend  to  vote 
unlawfully?  Now,  precisely  the  wrong  that  would  be  done  to  the 
voter  in  the  case  we  are  supposing,  by  the  judge  ordering  a  ver- 
dict of  guilty  to  be  entered  up,  was  done  by  that  course  in  Miss 
Anthony's  case.  She  thoroughly  believed  that  she  had  a  right  to 
vote.  In  addition  to  this  she  had  consulted  one  of  the  ablest 
lawyers  in  western  New  York,  who  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  she 
had  a  right  to  vote,  and  who  testified  on  the  trial  that  he  had 
given  her  that  advice.  The  act  of  Congress  upon  which  the 
prosecution  was  founded  uses  the  term  "knowingly"  —  "shall 
knowingly  vote  or  attempt  to  vote  in  the  name  of  any  other  per- 
son, or  more  than  once  at  the  same  election  for  any  candidate  for 
the  same  office,  or  vote  at  a  place  where  he  may  not  be  lawfully 
entitled  to  vote,  or  without  having  a  lawful  right  to  vote."  Here 
most  manifestly  the  term  "knowingly"  does  not  apply  to  the 
mere  act  of  voting.  It  is  hardly  possible  that  a  man  should  vote 
and  not  know  the  fact  that  he  is  voting.  The  statute  will  bear  no 
possible  construction  but  that  which  makes  the  term  "knowingly  " 
apply  to  the  illegality  of  the  act.  Thus,  "shall  knowingly  vote 
without  having  a  lawful  right  to  vote,"  can  only  mean,  shall  vote 
knowing  that  there  is  no  lawful  right  to  vote.  This  being  so, 
there  was  manifestly  a  most  vital  question  beyond  that  of  the  fact 
of  voting,  and  of  the  conclusion  of  the  judge  that  the  voting  was 
illegal,  namely,  did  Miss  Anthony  vote  knowing  that  she  had  no 
right  to  vote  ? 

Now,  many  people  will  say  that  Miss  Anthony  ought  to  have 
known  that  she  had  no  right  to  vote,  and  will  perhaps  regard  it  as 
an  audacious  attempt,  for  mere  effect,  to  assert  a  right  that  she 
might  think  she  ought  to  have,  but  could  not  really  have  believed 
that  she  had.  But  whatever  degree  of  credit  her  claim  to  have 
acted  honestly  in  the  matter  is  entitled  to,  whether  to  much,  or 
little,  or  none,  it  was  entirely  a  question  for  the  jury,  and  they 
alone  could  pass  upon  it.  The  judge  had  no  right  even  to  express 
an  opinion  on  the  subject  to  the  jury,  much  less  to  instruct  them 
upon  it,  and  least  of  all  to  order  a  verdict  of  guilty  without  con- 
sulting them. 

There  seems  to  have  been  an  impression,  as  the  writer  infers 
from  various  notices  of  the  matter  in  the  public  papers,  that  the 


JUDGE  HUNT  AND  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY'S  TRIAL.  167 

case  had  resolved  itself  into  a  pure  question  of  law.  Thus,  a  legal 
correspondent  of  one  of  our  leading  religious  papers,  in  defending 
the  course  of  Judge  Hunt,  says  :  "There  was  nothing  before  the 
court  but  a  pure  question  of  law.  Miss  Anthony  violated  the  law 
of  the  state  intentionally  and  deliberately,  as  she  openly  avowed, 
and  when  brought  to  trial  her  only  defense  was  that  the  law  was 
unconstitutional.  Here  was  nothing  whatever  to  go  to  the  jury." 
And  again  he  says:  "  In  jury  trials  all  questions  of  law  are  de- 
cided by  the  judge."  This  writer  is  referred  to  only  as  expressing 
what  are  supposed  to  be  the  views  of  many  others. 

To  show,  however,  how  entirely  incorrect  is  this  assumption 
of  fact,  I  insert  here  the  written  points  submitted  by  Miss  An- 
thony's counsel  to  the  court,  for  its  instruction  to  the  jury. 

"  First  —  That  if  the  defendant,  at  the  time  of  voting,  believed 
that  she  had  a  right  to  vote,  and  voted  in  good  faith  in  that  belief, 
she  is  not  guilty  of  the  offense  charged. 

"  Second  —  In  determining  the  question  whether  she  did  or  did 
not  believe  that  she  had  a  right  to  vote,  the  jury  may  take  into 
consideration,  as  bearing  upon  that  question,  the  advice  which  she 
received  from  the  counsel  to  whom  she  applied. 

"  Third  —  That  they  may  also  take  into  consideration,  as  bear- 
ing upon  the  same  question,  the  fact  that  the  inspectors  con- 
sidered the  question,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  she  had  a 
right  to  vote. 

"  Fourth  —  That  the  jury  have  a  right  to  find  a  general  verdict 
of  guilty  or  not  guilty,  as  they  shall  believe  that  she  has  or  has 
not  been  guilty  of  the  offense  described  in  the  statute. 

This  certainly  makes  it  clear  that  the  question  was  not  "  a 
pure  question  of  law,"  and  that  there  was  "  something  to  go  to  the 
jury."  And  this  would  be  so,  even  if,  as  that  writer  erroneously 
supposes,  Miss  Anthony  had  openly  avowed  before  the  court  that 
she  voted. 

But  even  if  this  point  be  wholly  laid  out  of  the  case,  and  it 
had  been  conceded  that  Miss  Anthony  had  knowingly  violated  the 
law,  if  she  should  be  proved  to  have  voted  at  all,  so  that  the  only 
questions  before  the  court  were,  first,  whether  she  had  voted,  as 
charged,  and  secondly,  whether  the  law  forbade  her  voting  ;  and 
if  in  this  state  of  the  case  a  hundred  witnesses  had  been  brought 
by  the  government  to  testify  that  she  had  "openly  avowed"  in 
their  presence  that  she  had  voted,  so  that  practically  the  question 
of  her  having  voted  was  proved  beyond  all  possible  question,  still 
the  judge  would  have  had  no  right  to  order  a  verdict  of  guilty. 


1 68  REMINISCENT  ES. 

The  proof  that  she  voted  would  still  be  evidence,  and  mere 
evidence,  and  a  judge  has  no  power  whatever  to  deal  with  evidence. 
He  can  deal  only  with  the  law  in  the  case,  and  the  jury  alone  can 
deal  with  the  facts. 

But  we  will  go  further  than  this.  We  will  suppose  that  in 
New  York,  as  in  some  of  the  states,  a  defendant  in  a  criminal  case 
is  allowed  to  testify,  and  that  Miss  Anthony  had  gone  upon  the 
stand  as  a  witness,  and  had  stated  distinctly  and  unequivocally 
that  she  did  in  fact  vote  as  charged.  We  must  not  forget  that,  if 
this  had  actually  occurred,  she  would  at  the  same  time  have  stated 
that  she  voted  in  the  full  belief  that  she  had  a  right  to  vote,  and 
that  she  was  advised  by  eminent  counsel  that  she  had  such  a 
right  —  a  state  of  the  case  which  we  have  before  referred  to  as  pre- 
senting a  vital  question  of  fact  for  the  jury,  and  which  excludes 
the  possibility  of  the  case  being  legally  dealt  with  by  the  judge  alone ; 
but  this  point  we  are  laying  out  of  the  case  in  the  view  we  are  now 
taking  of  it.  We  will  suppose  that  Miss  Anthony  not  only  testi- 
fied that  she  voted  in  fact,  but  also  that  she  had  no  belief  that  she 
had  any  right  to  vote  ;  making  a  case  where,  if  the  court  should 
hold  as  a  matter  of  law  that  she  had  no  right  to  vote,  there  would 
seem  to  be  no  possible  verdict  for  the  jury  to  bring  in  but  that  of 
"guilty." 

Even  in  this  case,  which  would  seem  to  resolve  itself  as  much 
as  possible  into  a  mere  question  of  law,  there  is  yet  no  power 
whatever  on  the  part  of  the  judge  to  order  a  verdict  of  guilty,  but 
it  rests  entirely  in  the  judgment  and  conscience  of  the  jury  what 
verdict  they  will  bring  in.  They  may  act  unwisely  and  uncon- 
scientiously,  perhaps  by  mere  favoritism,  or  a  weak  sympathy,  or 
prejudice,  or  on  any  other  indefensible  ground;  but  yet  they  have 
entire  power  over  the  matter.  It  is  for  them  finally  to  say  what 
their  verdict  shall  be,  and  the  judge  has  no  power  beyond  that  of 
instruction  upon  the  law  involved  in  the  case. 

The  proposition  laid  down  by  the  writer  before  referred  to, 
that  "  in  jury  trials  all  questions  of  law  are  decided  by  the  judge," 
is  not  unqualifiedly  true.  It  is  so  in  civil  causes,  but  in  criminal 
causes  it  has  been  holden  by  many  of  our  best  courts  that  the  jury 
are  judges  of  the  law  as  well  of  the  facts.  Pages  could  be  filled 
with  authorities  in  support  of  this  proposition.  The  courts  do  hold, 
however,  that  the  judges  are  to  instruct  the  jury  as  to  the  law,  and 
that  it  is  their  duty  to  take  the  law  as  thus  laid  down.  But  it  has 
never  been  held  that  if  the  jury  assume  the  responsibility  of  hold- 
ing a  prisoner  not  guilty  in  the  face  of  a  charge  from  the  judge 


JUDGE  HUNT  AND  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY'S  TRIAL.  169 

that  required  a  verdict  of  guilty,  where  the  question  was  wholly 
one  of  law,  they  had  not  full  power  to  do  it. 

The  question  is  one  ordinarily  of  little  practical  importance, 
but  it  here  helps  to  make  clear  the  very  point  we  are  discussing. 
Here  the  judge  laid  down  the  law,  correctly  we  will  suppose,  cer- 
tainly in  terms  that  left  the  jury  no  doubt  as  to  what  he  meant ; 
and  here,  by  all  the  authorities,  the  jury  ought,  as  a  matter  of  proper 
deference  in  one  view,  or  of  absolute  duty  in  the  other,  to  have 
adopted  the  view  of  the  law  given  them  by  the  judge.  But  it  was 
in  either  case  the  jury  only  who  could  apply  the  law  to  the  case. 
The  judge  could  instruct,  but  the  jury  only  could  apply  the  instruc- 
tion. That  is,  the  instruction  of  the  judge,  no  matter  how  author- 
itative we  may  regard  it,  could  find  its  way  to  the  defendant  only 
through  the  verdict  of  the  jury. 

It  is  only  where  the  confession  of  facts  is  matter  of  record 
(that  is,  where  the  plea  filed  or  recorded  in  the  case  admits  them)( 
that  the  judge  can  enter  up  a  judgment  without  the  finding  of  a 
jury.  Thus,  if  the  defendant  pleads  "  guilty,"  there  is  no  need  of  a 
jury  finding  him  so.  If,  however,  he  pleads  "  not  guilty,"  then  no 
matter  how  overwhelming  is  the  testimony  against  him  on  the 
trial,  no  matter  if  a  hundred  witnesses  prove  his  admission  of  all 
the  facts,  the  whole  is  not  legally  decisive  like  a  plea  of  guilty; 
but  the  question  still  remains  a  question  of  fact,  and  the  jury  alone 
can  determine  what  the  verdict  shall  be.  In  other  words,  it  is  no 
less  a  question  of  fact  for  the  reason  that  the  evidence  is  all  one 
way  and  overwhelming,  or  that  the  defendant  has  in  his  testimony 
admitted  all  the  facts  against  himself. 

The  writer  has  intended  this  article  for  general  rather  than 
professional  readers,  and  has  therefore  not  encumbered  it  with 
authorities  ;  but  he  has  stated  only  rules  and  principles  that  are 
well  established  and  familiar  to  all  persons  practicing  in  our  courts 
of  law. 

This  case  illustrates  an  important  defect  in  the  law  with 
regard  to  the  revision  of  verdicts  and  judgments  in  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court.  In  almost  all  other  courts  an  application 
for  a  new  trial  on  the  ground  of  erroneous  rulings  by  the  judge  is 
made  to  a  higher  and  independent  tribunal.  In  this  court,  how- 
ever, an  application  for  a  new  trial  is  addressed  to  and  decided  by 
the  same  judge  who  tried  the  case,  and  whose  erroneous  rulings 
are  complained  of.  Such  a  motion  was  made  and  argued  by  Miss 
Anthony's  counsel  before  Judge  Hunt,  who  refused  to  grant  anew 
trial.  Thus  it  was  Judge  Hunt  alone  who  was  to  decide  whether 

12 


REMINISCENCES. 

Judge  Hunt  was  wrong.  It  is  manifest  that  the  opportunity  for 
securing  justice,  even  before  the  most  honest  of  judges,  would  be 
somewhat  less  than  before  an  entirely  distinct  tribunal,  as  the 
judge  would  be  prejudiced  in  favor  of  his  own  opinion,  and  the 
best  and  most  learned  of  judges  are  human  and  fallible;  while  if  a 
judge  is  disposed  to  be  unfair,  it  is  perfectly  easy  for  him  to  sup- 
press all  attempts  of  a  party  injured  by  his  decision  to  set  it  aside. 

The  only  remedy  for  a  party  thus  wronged  is  by  an  appeal  to 
the  public.  Such  an  appeal,  as  a  friend  of  justice  and  of  the  law, 
without  regard  to  Miss  Anthony's  case  in  any  other  aspect,  the 
writer  makes  in  this  article.  The  public,  thus  the  only  appellate 
tribunal,  should  willingly  listen  to  such  a  case,  and  pass  its  own 
supreme  and  decisive  judgment  upon  it. 

The  writer  cannot  but  regard  Judge  Hunt's  course  as  not 
only  irregular  as  a  matter  of  law,  but  a  very  dangerous  encroach- 
ment on  the  right  of  every  person  accused  to  be  tried  by  a  jury. 
It  is  by  yielding  to  such  encroachments  that  liberties  are  lost. 

LIFE  AT  NOOK   FARM. 

In  1853  I  purchased,  with  Hon.  Francis  Gillette,  who  had 
married  my  sister,  a  farm  of  a  little  over  one  hundred  acres, 
lying  just  outside  of  the  limits  of  the  city  of  Hartford,  on  the 
Farmington  road.  It  had  belonged  to  William  H.  Imlay,  who 
had  held  it  for  thirty  years  or  more,  and  was  called  "  Nook 
Farm,"  this  name  having  been  given  to  it  because  the  river, 
now  called  Park  river,  curved  about  the  southern  part  of  it  in 
such  a  way  as  to  leave  some  thirty  or  forty  acres  within  the 
nook.  At  that  time  there  was  a  comfortable  farm  house  quite 
a  distance  in  the  interior,  but  no  other  dwelling  house.  The 
city  limits  were  extended  a  few  years  later  and  the  whole  farm 
taken  into  the  city.  It  has  now  five  city  streets,  well  filled  with 
city  houses,  the  southern  part  containing  several  factories. 

I  built  a  house  for  myself  on  a  street  which  we  opened  and 
called  Forest  street,  Mr.  Gillette  occupying  for  three  or  four 
years  the  farm  house  and  later  building  a  large  and  very  pleas- 
ant house  on  the  same  street.  The  neighborhood  where  we 
lived  still  kept  the  old  name  of  "  Nook  Farm,"  and  that  name 
remained  a  familiar  one  for  many  years,  and  has  hardly  yet  dis- 
appeared. The  early  comers  were  generally  family  or  personal 
friends,  and  we  lived  like  a  little  society  by  ourselves  —  each 


LIFE  AT  NOOK  FARM.  171 

of  us  making  free  of  the  others'  houses,  and  each  keeping  open 
house,  and  all  of  us  frequently  gathering  for  a  social  evening  or 
to  welcome  some  friendly  visitor,  often  some  person  distin- 
guished in  political,  literary,  or  philanthropic  life,  who  had 
come  to  some  of  our  houses. 

There  was  a  curious  thread  of  relationship  running  through 
our  little  neighborhood.  As  I  have  already  stated,  Mr.  Gillette 
and  I  were  the  first  settlers,  and  Mrs.  Gillette  was  my  sister. 
Soon  after  came  Thomas  C.  Perkins,  an  eminent  lawyer  of  the 
city,  whose  wife  was  sister  of  my  wife.  Then  came  Mrs.  Stowe, 
another  sister,  who  at  first  built  a  house  on  another  part  of  the 
farm,  but  subsequently  came  to  live  close  by  us  on  Forest 
street.  My  widowed  mother  early  built  herself  a  cottage  next 
my  own  house.  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  my  sister  Mrs.  Gillette, 
married  George  H.  Warner,  and  she  and  her  husband  settled 
close  by  us.  Next  came  Charles  Dudley  Warner  and  his 
brilliant  wife,  he  being  the  brother  of  George  H.  Warner  just 
mentioned.  Joseph  R.  Hawley,  then  my  law  partner,  but  since 
a  general  in  the  war  and  senator  in  Congress,  met  at  my  house, 
and  afterwards  married,  Harriet  W.  Foote,  a  cousin  of  my  wife. 
They  also  settled  in  our  immediate  neighborhood.  Rev.  Dr. 
Nathaniel  J.  Burton  and  his  wife  were  for  two  years  members 
of  my  family,  becoming  family  connections  by  the  marriage 
of  my  daughter  to  Dr.  Burton's  brother.  This  daughter  also 
settled  close  by  us.  Still  later,  Mark  Twain  (Samuel  L.  Clem- 
ens) built,  and  has  ever  since  occupied,  a  residence  near  us, 
his  wife  befog  the  daughter  of  a  very  intimate  and  much  loved 
friend  of  my  wife.  I  ought  not  to  omit  William  Gillette,  then  a 
boy  growing  up  among  us,  the  son  of  my  sister,  who  has  since 
become  distinguished  as  an  actor  and  playwright. 

A  writer  in  the  Hartford  Post  many  years  later  wrote  an 
article  on  the  life  at  Nook  Farm.  The  old  life  had  then  essen- 
tially passed  away.  Some  who  filled  large  places  in  it  had  died 
or  moved  away,  while  with  the  city's  growth  to  the  westward, 
new  families  had  come  in  and  we  had  well-filled  city  streets  in 
the  place  of  the  strictly  rural  region  of  thirty  years  before.  The 
article  is  written  by  a  very  friendly  pen,  I  think  by  one  of  the 
editors  of  the  paper,  and  speaks  of  my  own  family  in  so  compli- 
mentary terms  that  I  feel  much  doubt  as  to  the  good  taste  of 


1 72  REMINISCENCES. 

availing  myself  of  it  for  my  present  purpose.  But  it  is  so 
accurate  in  its  description  of  the  neighborhood  life  there,  and 
it  is  so  pardonable  that  I  should  love  tq  be  well  spoken  of,  that 
I  insert  the  article  in  full  just  as  I  find  it  in  the  paper: 

In  the  social  and  intellectual  life  of  this  city  Mr.  Hooker  has 
borne  no  small  part.  Aided  by  his  gifted  wife,  his  home  early 
became  the  center  of  a  group  of  cultured  people,  who  recognized 
in  their  host  and  hostess  a  charm  of  manner  and  grace  of  conver- 
sation beyond  what  is  often  permitted  even  the  most  cultivated  to 
enjoy. 

There  are  some  persons  in  Hartford  whose  recollections  of 
Nook  Farm  and  of  its  simple,  gracious,  and  delightful  hospitality 
thirty  years  ago,  are  among  the  pleasantest  of  their  social  mem- 
ories. The  place  itself,  sequestered  and  yet  not  remote,  was 
beautiful  for  situation,  and  furnished  for  comfort  with  a  rare  tact 
and  taste.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hooker  were  in  their  prime,  —  cheery, 
radiant,  optimistic,  and  full  of  sympathy  with  every  intellectual 
and  moral  movement  that  betokened  progress.  The  faces  and 
figures  and  voices  of  their  bright  and  beautiful  little  children 
gladdened  the  household,  and  gave  it  an  atmosphere  of  holy 
domesticity. 

To  be  admitted  into  that  family  circle  was  to  be  made  free 
therein,  for  freedom  was  its  striking  characteristic.  Dullness 
could  not  abide  there  ;  whatever  gift  or  talent  one  had  was  some- 
how elicited  and  magnified.  The  brightness,  versatility,  and 
ever-kindling  intellectuality  of  the  hosts  were  commingled  with 
such  gentleness,  sweetness,  and  Christian  kindness  that  the 
guests  were  ever  stimulated,  encouraged,  and  refreshed. 

There  was  no  gossip,  but  incessant  discussion,  keen  but  kindly 
controversy,  and  the  flashing  to  and  fro  of  wit  and  humor.  If 
any  person  of  promise  came  to  Hartford  then,  he  or  she  was 
likely  to  be  somehow  drawn  into  that  abode  of  truest  culture. 
There  Nathaniel  J.  Burton  was  at  home,  and  there  for  long 
periods  made  his  home,  most  loving  and  beloved.  He  was  a 
radical  then  in  politics  and  religion.  The  wiseacres  could  not 
quite  understand  that  brilliant,  audacious,  eloquent  genius.  But 
at  Nook  Farm  his  great  mind  and  great  heart  were  understood. 
His  glory  shone  there. 

When  Charles  Dudley  Warner  and  his  wife  came  to  Hart- 
ford, it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  they  should 
be  "at  home  "  with  "  the  Hookers,"  and  there  they  first  disclosed 


.£.  46. 


OUR  GOLDEN  WEDDING.  173 

their  intellectual  and  social  charms.  There  was  heard  the  im- 
perial power  of  her  musical  gift,  and  there  was  felt  the  power  of 
his  keen,  subtle,  humorous  intellect. 

What  evenings  one  remembers  there  in  the  society  of  such 
men  and  women !  If  Hartford  has  ever,  before  or  since,  had  a 
brighter,  sunnier,  healthier,  more  hospitable  or  quickening  spot 
than  Nook  Farm  in  those  far-off  days,  it  has  been  fortunate  in- 
deed. Great  clouds  were  gathering  in  the  political  sky,  but  the 
inmates  of  that  home  regarded  them  with  a  faith  and  hope  and 
courage  that  were  contagious.  Great  excitement  and  tumults 
were  abroad,  but  there  was  the  peace  of  a  certain  glorious  confi- 
dence in  God  and  humanity. 

Many  a  heart  looks  back  to  that  time  and  that  home  with 
profound  gratitude  for  the  privilege  of  freedom  in  such  an 
enlightened,  cultivated,  quickening,  and  altogether  beautiful 
household.  The  war,  as  it  went  on,  drew  all  loyal  hearts  into 
its  vortex,  and  made  great  social  changes.  Head  and  hand  were 
busy,  here  or  there,  and,  before  they  were  aware,  friends  were 
scattered,  homes  broken,  and  the  old  order  changed.  The  hosts 
went  out  into  larger  ways.  The  guests  also.  But  they  who 
knew  Nook  Farm  then  can  never  forget  it,  — never  cease  to  bless 
it  and  its  brilliant,  noble  hosts. 


OUR  GOLDEN   WEDDING. 

Our  golden  wedding,  which  occurred  on  the  fifth  day  of 
August,  1891,  was  of  course  a  day  of  great  personal  interest 
to  us,  but  was  also,  through  the  large  attendance  of  our  friends 
and  the  very  kindly  and  extended  public  notice  taken  of  it  by 
our  city  papers,  made  an  occasion  of  public  interest.  I  shall 
avail  myself  in  the  space  which  I  shall  devote  to  it,  very  largely 
and  perhaps  wholly  of  notices  of  it  given  by  the  papers  and  of 
letters  from  friends.  My  readers  will,  I  trust,  bear  in  mind  that 
the  affection  of  friends  easily  runs  into  extravagance  of  expres- 
sion at  such  a  time,  and  that  even  editorial  tributes  take  on 
something  of  the  prevailing  hue,  while  I  am  sure  they  will 
pardon  me  for  finding  in  all  this  overpraise  the  evidence  of  a 
genuine  and  earnest  love,  and  such  love  I  value  beyond  all  trib- 
utes to  any  intellectual  ability.  The  Hartford  Post,  in  an  edi- 
torial notice  of  our  golden  wedding,  after  speaking  of  me  pro- 
fessionally in  a  very  friendly  way,  says: 


174 


REMINISCENCES. 


Add  to  these  attributes  his  wide  acquaintance  and  the  per- 
sonal esteem  in  which  he  is  held,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  it  can 
be  said  of  John  Hooker  that  he  is  the  best-loved  member  of  his 
profession  in  the  state  to-day. 

No  office  in  the  gift  of  the  people  could  give  me  the 
satisfaction  that  I  feel  in  enjoying  in  so  large  measure 
the  affection  of  my  professional  brethren  and  the  public. 
Another  passage  I  cannot  forbear  to  quote  from  an  article 
in  the  Courant,  which  pays,  I  fear,  a  too  generous  tribute  to 
those  qualities  which  have  brought  to  me  the  warm  personal 
regard  of  my  fellowmen.  I  have  never  sought  their  votes 
for  office,  but  I  willingly  accept  their  suffrages  in  this  form: 

John  Hooker's  sterling  probity,  legal  ability,  and  refined  in- 
tellectual tastes,  his  ready  wit,  his  literary  gift  in  both  prose  and 
verse,  and  his  unstained  and  winsome  personal  character,  have 
long  made  him  widely  known,  respected,  and  loved,  not  only  in 
Hartford,  but  throughout  the  state.  In  respect  to  his  wit,  he  is 
famous  for  his  stories  and  sayings,  his  tendency  in  this  regard  be- 
ing once  happily  hit  off  by  his  commensal,  the  late  Charles  Chap- 
man, who  declared  him  "a  puritanical  wag."  Few  come  to  his 
years  who  are  so  universally  valued  and  beloved  of  their  fellow- 
men,  whose  influence  has  made  so  unswervingly  for  righteous- 
ness. 

Numerous  letters  were  received  by  us  before  the  reception, 
a  few  of  which  I  will  insert.  I  am  sure  the  following  will  inter- 
est my  readers: 

SOUTH  ASHFIELD,  MASS.,  July  16,  1891. 

DEAR  FRIENDS  :  —  I  shall  not  be  able  to  "call"  on  the  day  of 
your  golden  wedding,  but  will  send  my  love  with  congratulations 
and  good  wishes  now,  lest  some  mishap  prevent  me  as  the  day 
draws  near.  I  mind  well  how  you  were  made  known  to  me  in  the 
breaking  of  bread  under  your  own  roof-tree  many  years  ago,  and 
can  truly  say  that  the  glow  I  brought  away  in  my  heart  has  not 
yet  fallen  away  to  white  ashes.  I  can  even  tell  you  what  we  had 
for  dinner,  — men's  stomachs  have  a  large  memory,  —  but,  better 
still,  I  mind  my  warm  and  noble  welcome.  So  I  shall  come  again 
in  the  spirit  as  a  guest,  and  shall  know  it  is  Bible-true  that  in  all 
true  weddings  like  yours,  when  the  golden  wedding  day  comes 
round  by  God's  high  grace,  then  the  glory  of  the  maiden  of 
twenty,  shall  we  say,  cannot  be  seen  by  reason  of  the  glory 


OUR   GOLDEN  WEDDING. 


175 


which  excelleth  in  the  good  old  wife  of  seventy,  while  husband 
and  wife  together  are  changed  from  glory  to  glory  as  by  the 
spirit  of  the  Lord. 

Time  will  have  done  this  for  you  when  the  good  day  comes 
round,  and  I  only  wish  I  could  be  there  to  clasp  your  hands  and 
say  by  that  token  what  my  pen  cannot  write. 

Indeed,  yours,  ROBERT  COLLYER. 

WOODMONT.  CONN.,  July  21,   1891. 

DEAR  MRS.  HOOKER:  —  Of  course  I  shall  attend  the  golden 
wedding,  August  5th.  You  may  make  me  groomsman,  usher, 
or  helper  of  any  sort. 

It  was  forty-two  years  ago  last  May  that  I  came  to  John 
Hooker's  office  in  Farmington,  Conn.,  to  study  law,  and  made 
acquaintance  with  his  beautiful  young  wife,  who,  nevertheless, 
seemed  to  me  a  very  mature  lady.  It  was  my  intention  to  spend 
but  one  summer,  or,  at  the  most,  but  one  year  in  the  East,  and 
then  go  to  Wisconsin  with  my  beloved  friend  and  classmate,  Guy 
McMaster  of  Bath,  Steuben  county,  N.  Y.  I  stayed  in  Hartford 
and  Guy  stayed  in  Bath,  dying  there  about  four  years  ago,  having 
been  long  an  honored  and  able  judge,  following  precisely  in  the 
footsteps  of  his  father. 

Thanks  to  the  invaluable  friendship  of  John  and  Isabella 
Hooker,  I  went  to  Hartford  under  the  best  possible  auspices, 
and  in  due  time,  through  them,  met  that  very  sweet  and  noble 
woman,  Harriet  Ward  Foote.  You  and  John  have  every  year 
and  every  day  since  been  the  best  and  truest  of  friends,  with 
loving  words  of  commendation  for  every  honorable  ambition  and 
brotherly  and  sisterly  sympathy  in  every  misfortune  and  afflic- 
tion. What  a  multitude  of  people  thank  God  they  have  known 
you  both  !  A  great  many  of  them  are  in  heaven,  but  the  others 
will  surely  be  well  represented  on  the  5th. 

Edith  joins  me  in  the  heartiest  congratulations  and  good 
wishes.  Sincerely  yours, 

JOSEPH  R.  HAWLEY. 

ON   THE  TRAIN   GOING   TO   DUXBURY,  MASS.,  July   28,  1891. 

BELOVED  QUEEN  ISABELLA  :  —  Alas !  when  you  and  the  Apostle 
John  stand  up  to  receive  the  congratulations  of  your  world  of 
friends  upon  that  golden  day,  I  shall  be  in  the  national  capital  by 
previous  engagement  of  long  standing,  and  so  must  miss  one  .of 
the  rarest  pleasures  that  ever  beckoned  to  one,  like  a  friend's 


1 76  REMINISCENCES. 

hand  from  the  mirage  of  Delectable  Mountains.  Once  I  delib- 
erately lost  the  happiness  of  meeting  James  Russell  Lowell,  one 
of  my  most  beloved  poets,  because  we  temperancers  were  hold- 
ing a  convention  ;  but  it  costs  more  to  miss  sharing  in  the  joy  of 
an  ideal  pair  whose  lives  and  work,  whose  purposes  and  achieve- 
ments, predict  the  perfectibility  of  home  and  church  and  state. 

I  go  to  Washington  on  a  Beecherian  errand,  — a  Protestant  sis- 
ter seeking  the  Catholic  Total  Abstinence  Society  of  the  United 
vStates,  in  annual  convention  assembled,  to  ask  in  my  capacity  of 
fraternal  delegate  from  the  National  W.  C.  T.  U.,  that  these  ear- 
nest men  and  women  send  fraternal  delegates  to  our  White  Ribbon 
Convention  of  the  World's  Women  Temperance  Workers  in  Bos- 
ton in  November  next.  So  I  shall  be  consoled,  although  obliged 
to  miss  the  nectar  and  ambrosia  of  your  golden  feast,  where  wit, 
wisdom,  and  great-hearted  love  for  humanity  will  mingle,  by  the 
reflection  that  in  my  work-a-day  years  I  am  trying  to  help  carry 
out  the  beautiful  teachings  of  you  and  yours. 

In  common  with  all  the  intelligent  and,  to  some  degree,  right- 
minded  of  the  human  race,  let  me  send  to  our  King  John  and  our 
Queen  Isabella  the  love,  the  gratitude,  and  the  good-will  of  one 
who  expects  to  be  happier  in  heaven,  as  she  has  been  on  earth, 
because  you  are  there.  Health,  peace,  perfection  be  your  own, 
here  and  beyond,  prays  FRANCES  E.  WILLARD. 

The  Hartford  Courant  of  August  i,  1891,  four  days  before 
the  reception,  contained  the  following  cordial  notice  of  it: 

The  social  event  of  next  week  will  occur  on  Wednesday 
afternoon  and  evening,  when  John  and  Isabella  B.  Hooker  will 
receive  their  friends  at  the  City  Mission  Rooms  on  Pearl  street. 
The  occasion  will  be  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  their  wedding. 
In  addition  to  the  hundreds  of  invitations  sent  to  people  in  this 
city,  one  thousand  have  been  mailed  to  those  living  in  other 
places  in  this  country  and  Europe,  and  the  response  has  been 
such  as  to  assure  the  attendance  of  a  large  number  outside  Hart- 
ford. The  invitations  read  as  follows  : 

John  and  Isabella  Beecher  Hooker  cordially  invite  their 
friends  to  call  on  them  (-without  presents]  at  No.  234.  Pearl 
St.,    Hartford,    Conn.,   from   j   to   g  o'clock     Wednesday, 
August  5th, —  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  their  marriage. 
1841  — 1891. 


OUR   GOLDEN  WEDDING.  177 

While  it  was  at  first  intended  to  make  the  anniversary,  in 
view  of  the  generous  size  of  the  rooms,  a  formal  reception,  it  is 
now  hoped  that  it  will  take  the  shape  of  an  old-fashioned  tea- 
party,  and  one  of  the  features  will  be  the  presence  of  the  grand- 
children of  the  family  friends.  At  five  o'clock  all  the  little  ones 
will  be  served  a  supper  in  the  lower  hall  of  the  building,  and  at 
six  o'clock  the  older  folk  will  sit  down  to  supper  in  the  upper  hall. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hooker  will  receive,  seated  under  a  tastefully- 
arranged  bower  placed  in  the  large  hall,  thus  preventing  the 
fatigue  incidental  on  standing  for  so  long  a  time.  Above  the  plat- 
form will  hang  portraits  of  representatives  of  both  branches  of 
the  house,  among  them  likenesses  of  older  members  of  the 
Hooker  stock,  of  Mrs.  Stowe  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  a  portrait 
of  Mrs.  Hooker  as  a  bride  at  twenty,  painted  by  the  Rev.  Jared 
Flagg,  father  of  the  Hartford  artist,  Charles  Noel  Flagg,  another 
of  John  Hooker  at  the  time  of  his  silver  wedding,  the  painter  be- 
ing Matthew  Wilson,  and  an  oil  painting  of  Mary  Hooker  Burton, 
who  may  be  regarded  as  the  patron  saint  of  the  City  Mission,  the 
picture  being  the  work  of  Caroline  G.  Rogers  of  Troy. 

General  Hawley  will  act  as  master  of  ceremonies,  and  will 
no  doubt  make  appropriate  remarks  at  the  supper.  Music  will  be 
furnished  by  Messrs.  Richard  and  William  Wander.  During  the 
evening  the  guests  will  be  handed  a  card,  upon  which  are  printed 
the  words  of  Dr.  Bacon's  fine  hymn,  beginning  "Oh  God,  beneath 
Thy  guiding  hand,"  which  will  then  be  sung  by  the  company. 

Another  interesting  feature  of  the  occasion  will  be  the  pres- 
entation of  a  bride's  loaf  to  Mrs.  Hooker  by  the  Equal  Rights 
Club  of  Hartford.  This  is  in  recognition  of  the  fact  that  Mrs. 
Hooker  has  been  president  of  the  Connecticut  Woman  Suffrage 
Association  since  1869.  and  Mr.  Hooker  its  efficient  and  faithful 
treasurer.  The  presentation  will  be  made  by  Mrs.  Collins,  the 
mother  of  Dr.  Peltier. 

In  one  of  the  two  parlors  will  be  gathered  the  representa- 
tives of  the  lady  managers  of  the  World's  Columbian  Commission, 
of  which  Mrs.  Hooker  is  a  member  ;  in  the  other  the  distinguished 
woman  suffragists  who  will  be  present.  Among  those  of  the 
former  who  will  come  may  be  mentioned  Mrs.  Trautman  of  New 
York,  first  vice-president  of  the  commission,  Miss  Buselle  of  New 
Jersey,  Mrs.  French  of  Massachusetts,  and  Miss  Daily  of  Rhode 
Island.  Of  the  suffragists,  Susan  B.  Anthony,  Rachel  F.  Avery, 
Caroline  G.  Rogers,  and  Mary  S.  Howell,  all  leading  members  of 
the  National  American  Woman  Suffrage  Association,  will  be  on 


1 78  REMINISCENCES . 

hand  to  offer  felicitations  to  their  old-time  and  long-lived  friends. 
The  Rev.  Edward  Beecher  and  wife  will  also  be  in  attendance. 

This  anniversary  of  an  old  and  honored  Hartford  family, 
which  on  both  sides  of  the  house  is  so  well  represented  and 
adorned  in  the  persons  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hooker,  after  a  half  cen- 
tury of  good  works  and  gracious  living,  is  an  event  of  unusual 
interest,  and  doubtless  a  host  of  friends  will  give  them  a  royal 
greeting  and  hearty  congratulations  next  Wednesday. 

The  Springfield  Republican  of  August  2d  contained  the  fol- 
lowing friendly  notice  of  the  approaching  reception: 

Next  Wednesday  will  be  the  golden  wedding  day  of  as  rare  a 
couple  as  Hartford  knows  and  loves,  that  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John 
Hooker,  who  will  on  that  day  meet  their  friends  for  a  brief  hour 
of  greeting  and  congratulation  on  having  passed  a  half  century  in 
each  other's  company  as  husband  and  wife,  and  for  purposes  more 
far  reaching  than  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  ordinary  wedded 
couple.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  pair  more  widely  dis- 
similar in  the  line  of  intellectual  activities,  or  more  closely  united 
in  their  earnest  efforts  for  the  betterment  of  the  race,  whether  it 
was  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  or  the  urging  forward  of  the 
reforms  of  the  later  days.  John  Hooker  is  to-day,  without  ques- 
tion, the  best  loved  man  of  his  profession  in  the  state.  .  .  But 
if  he  is  held  in  the  highest  esteem  by  the  profession  to  which  he 
belongs,  in  the  higher  walks  of  social  and  intellectual  life  of  the 
city  he  has  always  had  a  place  which  few  can  hope  to  obtain. 
His  activity  in  all  good  causes,  his  independence  in  thought,  and 
his  ready  willingness  to  put  forth  that  thought  when  needed,  is 
recognized,  and  no  man  is  better  known  by  those  who  have 
"benefited  by  his  work. 

The  following  card  which  I  sent  to  the  Courant  on  the  ad 
of  August,  will  perhaps  make  plain  the  thoroughly  uncere- 
monious and  democratic  character  which  we  intended  to 
give  to  the  occasion  : 

To  the  Editor  of  The  Courant : 

To  prevent  misapprehension  with  regard  to  the  golden  wed- 
ding of  Wednesday,  please  permit  me  to  say  to  our  friends  that  in 
view  of  the  very  large  number  who  have  informed  us  that  they 
will  attend,  it  is  desirable  that,  if  equally  convenient,  and  es- 


OUR  GOLDEN  WEDDING. 


179 


pecially  if  they  bring  children  with  them  (which  we  desire),  they 
call  in  the  afternoon  between  3  and  6,  leaving  more  room  for  the 
many  who  can  come  only  in  the  evening.  Also,  that  the  family 
friends,  the  guests  from  out  of  town,  and  the  ladies  assisting  in 
receiving  and  at  the  tables,  will  sit  down  to  tea  together  from  6  to 
7,  taking  also  that  hour  for  rest.  It  is  impossible,  of  course,  to 
make  the  invitation  to  this  simple  entertainment  general.  Then 
from  7  to  9  we  will  receive  evening  visitors.  Mrs.  Hooker  and  I 
reach  out  with  great  interest  and  sympathy  towards  young  women 
who,  as  teachers,  as  artists,  as  seamstresses,  and  clerks,  and  in 
other  industries,  are  supporting  themselves,  and  often  others  who 
are  dependent  upon  them,  and  of  these  we  have  invited  a  large 
number.  The  old  servants  of  the  family  will  be  there  as  guests, 
and  the  honest  traders  with  whom  we  have  long  dealt,  and  their 
wives  and  children. 

The  evening  will  close  at  9,  by  the  singing  of  hymns  and  a 
prayer  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  Beecher.  Any  who  call  in  the 
afternoon  will  be  welcomed  again  at  this  time  if  they  choose  to 
come.  The  whole  affair  will  be  unceremonious,  and  there  will 
be  no  ushers.  JOHN  HOOKER. 

The  Courant  of  August  6th  contained  the  following  ex 
tended  notice  of  the  reception  which  took  place  the  evening 
before : 

The  Hooker  golden  wedding  reception,  which  took  place 
yesterday  afternoon  and  evening  at  the  City  Mission  rooms  on 
Pearl  Street,  was  unique  and  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  social 
gatherings  which  ever  occurred  in  Hartford.  Seldom  has  a  more 
distinguished  company  of  people  been  brought  together  in  this 
city,  and  in  addition  to  this  the  whole  occasion  was  marked  by  a 
cordiality,  spontaneous  good-fellowship,  and  unconventionality 
which  made  it  enjoyable  and  significant.  The  arrangements  were 
noticeable  for  good  taste  and  felicity  of  effect,  and  reflect  great 
credit  on  the  ladies  of  the  City  Mission,  aided  by  Mrs.  George 
Warner  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Lorenz.  Down  stairs,  Wright 
Hall  was  used  for  a  supper  room,  two  long  tables  being  spread  with 
sandwiches,  cake,  fruit,  ice  cream,  and  coffee,  and  the  entrance 
hall  was  prettily  fitted  up,  as  was  the  business  office.  Ascending 
the  steps,  the  large  reception  hall  was  given  up  to  the  inflowing 
guests.  At  the  farther  end  of  this  spacious  room  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Hooker  sat.on  a  dais  over  which  evergreens  were  tastefully  draped, 


l8o  REMINISCENCES. 

while  the  dates  1841-1891  were  prettily  worked  below  the  green- 
ery in  rustic  lettering.  Mrs.  Hooker  wore  a  dress  of  silver-gray 
silk,  with  point  lace  overlaid  with  gold,  the  gown  having  been 
made  for  her  silver  wedding,  and  her  queenly  and  beautiful  ap- 
pearance was  subject  of  common  remark  throughout  the  recep- 
tion. Beside  Mr.  Hooker  sat  the  venerable  Dr.  Edward  Beecher, 
and  his  wife  occupied  a  similar  position  with  regard  to  Mrs. 
Hooker.  The  walls  were  gracefully  hung  with  golden-rod,  nas- 
turtiums and  black-eyed  susans  and  other  blooms.  The  Lucy  I. 
Church  parlors,  opposite  the  large  hall,  were  devoted  to  a  family 
picture  gallery.  Here  hung  portraits  of  John  Hooker,  of  Isabella 
when  a  young  wife,  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hooker,  parents  of  John,  the 
latter  painting  being  retouched  by  the  skillful  hand  of  Mr.  Charles 
Noel  Flagg,  so  that  the  dear  old  lady's  face  looked  benignant 
under  silver  hair,  and  of  John  Hooker's  grandfather  and  grand- 
mother, these  last  being  drawings.  The  west  wall  showed  a 
crayon  of  Mrs.  Stowe,  a  painting  of  little  Isabel  Hooker,  daugh- 
ter of  Dr.  E.  B.  Hooker,  by  a  Japanese  artist;  on  the  south  wall 
were  two  handsomely  framed  diplomas,  certifying  to  the  election 
of  Mrs.  Smith  and  Mrs.  Hooker  to  a  membership  in  the  Columbian 
Commission;  and  in  the  east  parlor  was  a  large  portrait  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher. 

Shortly  after  3  o'clock  the  invited  guests  began  to  arrive,  and 
by  4  a  large  number  of  people  were  distributed  among  the  various 
rooms  and  halls.  The  number  steadily  increased  up  to  6  o'clock, 
when  there  was  quite  a  thinning  out,  the  nearer  family  friends,  how- 
ever, and  the  relatives  remaining.  About  half-past  5  Mrs.  Virginia 
T.  Smith,  in  behalf  of  the  Equal  Rights  Club  of  Hartford,  made  a 
speech,  presenting  a  bride's  loaf  covered  with  fifty  shining  gold 
dollars.  This  cake  was  afterwards  cut  up  into  small  pieces  and 
placed  in  envelopes,  which  were  for  the  asking  for  all  who  wished 
this  souvenir  of  the  occasion.  Mrs.  Hooker  rose  and  responded. 
She  stated  that  Mrs.  Collins,  who  had  intended  to  make  the  pre- 
sentation, was  unable  to  do  so,  but  had  written  her  a  note  in  which 
she  said  that  it  was  better  to  give  her  old  friends,  the  Hookers,  a 
little  taffy  now  than  epitaphy  hereafter.  Mrs.  Hooker  referred  to 
the  warm  response  which  made  all  her  work  and  anxiety  over  the 
reception  doubly  repaid,  and  she  was  followed  by  Mr.  Hooker,  who 
made  a  characteristically  witty  speech,  which  was  heartily  ap- 
plauded. A  cordial  invitation  was  extended  by  the  Hookers  to  all 
who  could  to  remain  through  the  supper  hour  and  to  listen  to  some 
quartette  singing  by  Messrs.  Wander,  Maercklein,  Wright,  and  Bur- 


OUR   GOLDEN  WEDDING.  181 

dick.  All  these  gentlemen  rendered  a  number  of  songs  with  good 
effect,  and  Mr.  Wright  of  the  Center  Church  gave  several  base  solos, 
his  fine  voice  being  much  appreciated  and  applauded.  A  unique 
feature  of  the  evening  was  the  presence  of  John  Hutchinson,  of 
the  famous  old-time  Hutchinson  family  of  singers,  who  was  intro- 
duced by  General  Hawley,  and  who  gave,  in  a  voice  still  clear  and 
sweet,  some  favorites  of  long  ago,  among  them  the  banner  piece 
of  the  Hutchinsons,  "  The  Old  Granite  State."  After  supper  for 
an  hour  there  was  a  lull  in  the  atttendance,  and  an  excellent 
opportunity  was  offered  to  circulate  more  freely,  to  meet  and 
greet  the  many  famous  and  fine-looking  men  and  women  who 
fell  into  groups,  sat  or  stood  or  walked  from  room  to  room.  Then 
the  numbers  began  to  swell,  and  from  8  to  9  the  rooms  were 
crowded  with  a  brilliant  assemblage  composed  of  Hartford's  lead- 
ing citizens,  and  of  many  from  abroad  known  throughout  the  land. 
Shortly  before  9  o'clock  General  Hawley  addressed  the  company, 
saying  that  the  reception  would  close  by  the  united  singing  of  the 
hymns  printed  on  cards  which  were  handed  to  one  and  all,  and  by 
remarks  and  a  prayer  by  Dr.  Edward  Beecher.  At  the  top  of  the 
-card  in  gold  letters  was  to  be  read:  "  Golden  Wedding  Hymns, 
1841-1891,  J.  H.  and  I.  B.  H."  The  hymns  selected  were  Dr. 
Leonard  Bacon's  "Oh  God,  beneath  Thy  Guiding  Hand,"  and 
Fawcett's  "  Blest  Be  the  Tie  that  Binds."  The  hundreds  present 
took  hold  with  a  will,  and  the  result  was  hearty  and  inspiring. 
Then  the  aged  Dr.  Beecher,  who  only  a  few  years  ago  mirac- 
ulously recovered  from  a  serious  accident,  spoke  with  beautiful 
simplicity.  It  was,  he  said,  a  time  of  the  loving  sympathetic  com- 
munion of  friend  with  friend,  of  family  with  family,  of  warm 
social  intercourse.  But  the  sunshine  of  God  was  needed  over  and 
above  this  sunshine  of  friendship,  and  he  believed  that  the  divine 
leading  was  to  be  seen  in  the  coming  of  Thomas  Hooker  to  Con- 
necticut, in  his  founding  Hartford,  and  in  the  honorable  and 
blameless  lives  of  these  his  descendants  who  were  there  present. 
He  followed  his  happy  little  address  by  a  heartfelt  prayer,  and 
then  gave  the  benediction,  after  which  the  gathering  rapidly 
broke  up. 

Thus  closed  an  evening  which  it  is  safe  to  say  those  present 
will  long  remember  for  its  delightful  informality  and  its  atmos- 
phere of  genuine  brotherliness.  It  was  just  the  kind  of  a  recep- 
tion which  draws  people  together  in  an  uncritical  spirit,  and  it 
was  a  testimonial  of  the  respect  and  love  in  which  the  leading 
representatives  of  this  old  and  honored  Hartford  family  are  held 


1 8  2  REMINISCENCES. 

by  their  fellow  citizens  and  the  country  which  they  have  made 
better. 

Among  the  numerous  friends  from  out  of  town  who  attended 
may  be  mentioned  the  following  :  William  M.  Evarts  and  Miss 
Evarts,  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  John  Hutchinson,  the  Rev. 
Thomas  K.  Beecher,  the  Rev.  Charles  E.  Stowe,  Dr.  Edward 
Beecher  and  Mrs.  Beecher,  Miss  Grace  King,  Miss  Helen  Clark  of 
Poet  Lore,  Mrs.  Frank  Osborne,  regent  of  the  Daughters  of  the 
Revolution  of  Illinois,  the  Hon.  Lynde  Harrison  and  Mrs.  Har- 
rison of  New  Haven,  Judge  V.  B.  Chamberlain  of  New  Britain, 
Professor  Brown  of  New  Haven,  J.  L.  Hunter  of  Willimantic,  B.  H. 
Bill  of  Rockville,  Mrs.  W.  F.  Rogers,  president  of  the  Equality 
Club  of  Meriden,  the  Hon.  S.  W.  Kellogg  and  Mrs.  Kellogg  of 
Waterbury,  Mrs.  Julius  Gay  of  Farmington,  Dr.  Bulkley  of  New 
York,  and  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Frank  Cheney  of  South  Manchester. 

The  World's  Columbian  Commission  at  Chicago  was  repre- 
sented by  Mrs.  Ralph  Trautman,  first  vice-president,  Mrs.  John 
Pope  and  Miss  Ellen  A.  Ford  of  New  York,  Miss  Mary  E.  Busselle 
of  Newark,  N.  J.,  Mrs.  Jonas  H.  French  of  Boston,  Mass.,  Miss 
Charlotte  Field  Dudley  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  Miss  Frances  S.  Ives 
of  New  Haven,  and  Miss  Couzins  of  St.  Louis,  secretary  of  the 
board. 

Among  the  leading  woman  suffragists  present  were  Susan  B. 
Anthony  of  Rochester,  N.  Y. ;  Caroline  Gilkey  Rogers  of  Troy, 
N.  Y.;  Mary  Seymour  Howell  of  Albany,  N.  Y. ;  Rachel  Foster 
Avery  of  Philadelphia,  Pa.;  Kate  Trimble  de  Roode  of  Covington, 
Ky.;  Mrs.  Edward  Beecher  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.;  Sara  Winthrop 
Smith  of  Cincinnati,  O. ;  Charlotte  Porter  of  Philadelphia. 

Among  the  hundreds  of  Hartfordites  who  attended  the  after- 
noon and  evening  receptions  were  noted  General  and  Mrs.  Hawley^ 
Judge  and  Mrs.  Shipman,  Professors  Hart  and  Pynchon  of  Trinity 
College,  the  Rev.  Drs.  Parker  and  Graham,  the  Rev.  Frank  L. 
Shipman,  the  Misses  Stowe,  the  Misses  Ely,  Mrs.  Samuel  Colt, 
the  Hon.  William  Hamersley,  Mrs.  John  Parsons,  and  Mrs. 
Webb,  Dr.  E.  B.  Hooker,  Rodney  Dennis,  Atwood  Collins,  and 
W.  E.  Collins. 

The  Hartford  Times  of  August  6th  said: 

A  half  century  of  happy  wedded  life;  five  decades  of  useful- 
ness; fifty  golden  years  of  love  and  labor  side  by  side;  these  were 
fittingly  celebrated  Wednesday  afternoon  by  the  Hon.  John 


OUR  GOLDEN   WEDDING. 


183 


Hooker  and  his  wife,  Isabella  Beecher  Hooker.  It  was  such  a 
golden  wedding  as  is  not  often  seen  and  seldom,  indeed,  falls  to 
the  happy  fortune  of  husband  and  wife  to  celebrate.  Some  thou- 
sands of  people  were  present,  in  the  afternoon  and  evening;  and 
a  more  mixed  and  curiously  representative  gathering  than  that  of 
the  evening,  especially,  is  never  seen.  It  was  mostly  a  dress  re- 
ception, and  the  general  aspect  of  the  great  crowd  was  not  merely 
respectable  and  becoming,  but  fashionable  and  stylish  ;  yet 
mingled  with  the  great  stream  were  sub-currents  and  little  surface 
eddies  of  very  plain,  sensible,  homespun  folk,  mostly  of  an  elderly 
aspect,  and  not  a  few  celebrities  from  near  and  far.  The  most 
striking  and  interesting  person  in  the  reception  room  (excepting, 
of  course,  the  bride  and  groom)  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Edward 
Beecher  of  Brooklyn,  author  of  The  Conflict  of  Ages  —  an  elder 
brother  of  Mrs.  Hooker,  born  in  1804.  Notwithstanding  his  age 
Dr.  Beecher  seems  in  good  health  and  vigorous  yet.  Less  than 
two  years  ago,  in  a  rude  and  violent  crowd  at  a  railway  train,  he 
was  thrown  under  the  wheels  and  had  one  leg  so  badly  crushed 
that  it  had  to  be  amputated;  a  trial  which  he  bore  with  singular 
cheerfulness  and  patience,  and  from  which  he  rallied  as  quickly 
as  would  most  men  of  far  fewer  years. 

A  queer  and  quaint-looking  elderly  figure  in  the  crowd  was 
John  Hutchinson,  one  of  the  survivors  of  the  Hutchinson 
Family,  of  New  Hampshire,  vocalists,  who  with  Judson,  John, 
Asa,  Abby,  and  Jesse,  and  all  the  rest,  used  to  give  popular  con- 
certs, along  in  1845,  and  later.  His  long  hair,  almost  white  now, 
fell  down  over  his  shoulders,  parted  behind  in  two  divisions,  and 
an  immensely  broad  Shakesperian  shirt  collar  lay  wide  over  his 
shoulders.  This  quaint  vocalist  gratified  the  large  company  by 
singing  some  of  the  family's  old  and  popular  songs. 

It  was  a  notably  pleasant  gathering,  commemorating  a  pleas- 
ant and  unusual  occasion.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hooker  may  well  feel 
gratified  at  such  a  demonstration  of  the  interest  and  respect  felt 
for  them  by  the  people  of  Hartford." 

The  Hartford  Post  of  the  same  date  said : 

John  and  Isabella  Beecher  Hooker !  These  are  the  names 
which  Hartford  honored  herself  in  honoring  Wednesday.  Fifty 
years  have  come  and  gone  since  their  union  was  cemented.  What 
changes  have  taken  place  since  then!  How  different  the  Hartford 
of  1891  is  from  the  Hartford  of  1841!  And  no  two  people  have 


1 84  REMINISCENCES. 

given  a  greater  impetus  to  the  intellectual  growth  and  broader 
thought  in  Hartford  that  these  fifty  years  show  than  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Hooker.  Mr.  Hooker  comes  of  the  best  colonial  stock,  being  the 
sixth  lineal  decendant  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Hooker,  who  founded 
Hartford.  He  is  a  native  of  Farmington,  this  state,  where  he  was 
born  April  19,  1816.  His  father,  Edward  Hooker,  himself  a  grad- 
uate of  Yale  and  a  fine  scholar,  aided  his  son  in  his  preparation  for 
college.  Mrs.  Hooker  may  also  with  reason  boast  of  her  colonial 
ancestry,  for  on  her  mother's  side  she  is  a  grandniece  of  Rufus 
King,  of  revolutionary  fame.  She  was  born  at  Litchfield,  Conn., 
February  22,  1822,  and  was  four  years  old  when  her  father,  Lyman 
Beecher,  went  to  Boston.  When  she  was  in  her  i2th  year  her 
family  moved  to  Cincinnati,  Dr.  Beecher  having  been  elected 
president  of  the  theological  seminary.  Four  years  later  she  came 
to  Hartford,  where  her  sister,  Mrs.  Perkins,  lived;  and  here  it  was 
that  she  first  met  Mr.  Hooker. 

The  C  our  ant  of  the  same  day  contained  the  following  edi- 
torial on  the  subject: 

The  reception  held  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hooker  yesterday  in 
commemoration  of  their  golden  wedding  was  an  event  which 
Hartford  will  long  remember.  In  spite  of  its  occurrence  in  the 
season  when  a  large  number  of  our  citizens  are  absent  from  the 
city,  the  attendance  was  immense  and  must  have  been  deeply 
gratifying  to  the  noble  and  distinguished  people  thus  honored. 
The  causes  for  such  a  gathering  are  on  the  surface.  The  name  of 
Hooker  is  an  historic  one  in  this  community.  Moreover,  the 
present  representatives  of  the  family  have  lived  long,  useful,  and 
unselfish  lives  here  and  have  won  distinction  in  different  fields  of 
activity.  It  was  fitting  and  natural  therefore  that  the  completion 
of  a  half  century  of  their  married  joys  and  sorrows  should  be 
signalized  in  a  manner  more  public  than  is  common  on  such  occa- 
sions. It  was  also  fitting  that  the  country  at  large  should  furnish 
its  quota  of  kindred  spirits,  men  and  women,  who  have  been  of 
benefit  to  their  fellow  creatures  and  have  won  a  good  name.  But 
while  the  gathering  was  remarkable  for  the  brilliancy  and  fine 
quality  of  the  guests,  it  was  also  democratic  in  the  best  sense. 
All  classes  met  with  the  one  desire  to  give  honor  where  honor  was 
due.  And  the  spontaneity  and  homeliness  of  some  of  the  features 
of  the  occasion  were  at  once  a  testimonial  to  the  native  dignity 


SOME  FURTHER  INTRODUCTORY  MATTER.      185 

and  simplicity  of  the  hosts,  and  a  recognition  of  their  worth  on 
the  part  of  their  cityful  of  friends  and  well-wishers. 

Such  testimonials  from  our  journalists,  and  the  great  one 
from  the  public  in  its  large  attendance  upon  our  reception, 
could  not  but  be  very  gratifying  to  Mrs.  Hooker  and  myself. 


SOME  FURTHER  INTRODUCTORY  MATTER. 

I  wrote  my  introductory  chapter,  giving  an  account  of  my 
early  life  in  Farmington,  and  had  it  put  into  type,  before  I  pre- 
pared much  of  what  follows  it  in  the  volume.  I  have  since 
thought  of  sundry  incidents  of  that  period  of  my  life  that  will, 
I  think,  interest  my  readers. 

I  will,  first  of  all,  correct  an  error  in  that  chapter  on  page 
13.  In  speaking  of  the  old  crown  that  had  since  pre-revolution- 
ary  times  kept  its  place  at  the  top  of  the  church  spire,  and 
which  was  taken  down  about  1826,  I  stated  that  it  had  not  been 
preserved,  but  had  disappeared  and  been  lost.  Mr.  Chauncey 
Rowe,  a  lifelong  resident  of  Farmington,  and  a  year  or  two  my 
senior,  informs  me  that  the  crown  was  made  of  copper,  and 
that  when  it  was  taken  down  it  was  melted  and  made  over  into 
a  star,  which  was  put  in  the  place  of  the  crown  on  the  spire 
and  remains  to  this  day.  Mr.  Rowe  also  informs  me  that  the 
shingles  on  the  old  church,  which  are  still  in  service  there 
after  more  than  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  years,  are  of  pine 
and  not  of  cedar,  and  he  gave  me  one  recently  taken  from  the 
roof  in  making  some  repairs,  which  I  am  preserving  with 
much  interest. 

Among  the  incidents  of  my  boyhood  that  greatly  im- 
pressed me  at  the  time,  was  a  great  Methodist  revival.  There 
had  been  no  church  of  that  denomination  in  the  village,  and 
I  do  not  remember  just  how  the  interest  was  awakened,  but  I 
think  it  began  with  the  labors  of  some  earnest  Methodist  ex- 
horters,  who  held  a  series  of  meetings  in  a  schoolhouse  at  the 
north  end  of  the  village.  It  took  in  very  few  of  the  regular 
Congregationalists,  who  were  constant  attendants  on  the 
ministrations  of  Rev.  Dr.  Porter,  but  seemed  to  get  hold  of 
almost  all  the  laboring  classes  and  poor  people,  the  great  ma- 
jority of  whom  rarely  attended  church,  and  it  probably  did 
13 


1 86       .  REMINISCENCES. 

much  good  among  them.  The  Methodist  denomination  is  now 
one  of  intelligence  and  respectability,  with  its  institutions  of 
learning  and  well-educated  ministry,  but  at  that  time  it  had, 
at  least  in  Connecticut,  a  low  grade  among  religious  denomina- 
tions as  to  the  intelligence  and  social  position  of  its  members. 
Their  evening  meetings,  which,  during  the  revival,  were  held 
almost  every  evening,  filled  the  schoolhouse  to  overflowing, 
and  were  often  attended  by  me  with  a  boyish  interest  in  what 
seemed,  and  probably  was,  the  extravagance  of  the  perform- 
ances. Women  spoke,  in  exhortation  and  prayer,  as  freely 
as  the  men,  an  utter  novelty  to  me  then,  but  the  beginning  of 
a  vast  improvement  in  the  conduct  of  our  prayer  meetings. 
Some  very  grotesque  blunders  were  made  by  some  of  the 
speakers.  There  was  one  who  was  very  prominent  among 
them,  and  who  came  to  be  quite  an  authority  in  religious 
matters.  His  name  was  Warren.  He  was  a  shoemaker  by 
trade,  but  had  some  time  before  taken  up,  as  incidental,  the 
practice  of  Thompsonian  medicine.  Through  this  practice 
he  had  come  to  be  known  as  Dr.  Warren.  When  the  religious 
excitement  came  along  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  be  reached 
by  it,  and  he  very  soon  became  a  vehement  exhorter,  after  a 
little  while  going  to  other  towns,  and  becoming  recognized  as 
one  of  the  leading  revivalists  of  the  denomination.  When  he 
began  to  preach  he  easily  got  the  title  of  Reverend,  and  as  he 
had  already  that  of  doctor,  he  became  Rev.  Dr.  Warren.  I 
never  heard  a  more  impetuous  exhorter.  He  spoke  in  a  high 
key,  and  would  draw  long  breaths  between  his  sentences  that 
could  be  heard  over  the  room.  I  heard  a  plain  Methodist 
say  of  him  that  his  ideas  came  so  fast  that  he  could  not  find 
words  for  them ;  still  he  made  out  to  find  big  words  as  he  wanted 
them.  On  one  occasion  he  was  leading  in  prayer  at  a  school- 
house  meeting,  and  prayed  that  God  would  pour  out  His  spirit 
on  the  town  "  as  He  poured  out  the  water  in  the  antediluvian 
flood/'  There  was  one  of  the  brethren  who  used  to  pray  "  for 
the  fatherless  and  the  widowless."  One  young  man  was  pray- 
ing to  God  in  a  most  earnest  way  that  they  might  all  be  pre- 
pared to  die,  and  proceeded  thus:  "  Oh,  Lord,  we  don't  know 
when  we  shall  be  called  away.  '  Xerxes  the  great  did  die,  and 
so  must  you  and  I.'  " 


SOME  FURTHER  INTRODUCTORY  MATTER.      187 

The  Methodists,  with  such  help  as  they  could  get  from  their 
fellow  townsmen  of  other  denominations,  built  a  very  modest 
church  on  a  corner  of  the  village  green,  where  I  have  often 
joined  them  in  worship,  which,  within  a  few  years,  has  been 
burned  down.  The  Methodist  clergy  of  the  district  used  oc- 
casionally to  hold  their  quarterly  meetings  there.  One  of 
these  meetings  was  the  occasion  of  a  very  amusing  incident. 
The  clergy  were  sent  out  for  dinner  among  the  Methodist 
brethren  and  sisters,  who  always  got  up  a  special  dinner  for 
them.  One  of  the  most  devoted  of  the  Methodist  women  was 
Mrs.  Fredus  Reed,  who  took  home  two  of  the  brethren  for 
dinner.  Her  husband  was  a  hard  drinking  and  exceedingly 
profane  man.  He  had  that  morning  been  arrested  by  a  con- 
stable for  profane  swearing,  and  had  been  taken  before  a  justice 
of  the  peace  to  be  tried,  and  the  case  had  not  been  concluded 
when  Sister  Reed  sat  down  with  her  reverend  friends  to  her 
nice  dinner.  Soon  after  they  began  one  of  the  clergymen  said, 
"  Where  is  Brother  Reed?  "  '*  He  had  some  important  busi- 
ness to  attend  to,"  said  Mrs.  Reed,  "  and  could  not  be  here." 
"  I  am  sorry,"  said  the  clergyman,  ''  that  Brother  Reed  should 
let  any  business  keep  him  from  attending  our  delightful  meet- 
ing and  taking  dinner  with  us  now."  "  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Reed, 
"  it  is  some  law  business  of  importance,  and  he  could  not  regu- 
late the  time  of  it  for  himself."  "  W:hat,"  said  he,  "  does 
Brother  Reed  go  to  kw?  I  am  very  sorry  for  that.  I  think 
our  Christian  people  should  not  go  to  law."  "  Well,"  said 
Mrs.  Reed,  "  if  you  must  know,  he's  hauled  up  before  a  justice 
of  the  peace  for  profane  swearing." 

This  Fredus  Reed  was  swept  in  by  the  great  \Vashingtonian 
temperance  movement  of  about  1840,  and  signed  the  pledge, 
and  became  one  of  the  temperance  exhorters.  I  remember 
that  at  one  time  he  was  at  my  house  in  Farmington  and  was 
talking  about  the  certainty  that  he  should  always  keep  his 
pledge.  My  wife  said  to  him,  "  Mr.  Reed,  you  must  not  trust 
to  your  own  strength,  you  must  rely  on  God's  help."  He  re- 
plied, "  I  don't  want  God's  help,  nor  that  of  anybody.  I  am 
strong  enough  myself."  "  Then,"  said  she,  "  you  will  surely 
fall."  "  I  have  no  fear  of  it,"  said  he.  It  was  not  long  before 
he  fell,  and  became  a  sot  again,  and  so  remained  until  his  death 
a  few  vears  later. 


1 8  8  REAfhVISCENCES. 

When  I  was  a  boy  there  were  several  slaves  left  in  Con- 
necticut, though  I  do  not  now  remember  seeing  one  in  Farm- 
ington.  The  legislature,  in  1784,  passed  an  act  making  all 
slaves  born  in  the  state  after  March  i,  1784,  free  on  becoming 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  in  1797  an  act  making  all  born 
after  August  I,  1797,  free  at  the  age  of  twenty-one.  Slavery 
was  not  absolutely  abolished  until  1848,  at  which  time  there 
were  only  six  slaves  surviving.  There  must  have  been  in  my 
boyhood  quite  a  number,  as  in  1830  one  needed  to  be  only 
fifty-six  years  old  to  be  a  slave.  Probably  many  had  been 
emancipated.  But,  though  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen 
any  slaves,  I  used  occasionally  to  hear  some  of  the  old  slave- 
holders tell  about  their  experiences  under  the  system.  Gad 
Cowles  kept  the  principal  store  in  Farmington.  He  must  have 
been  born  about  1780,  and  lived  to  be  about  seventy-five  years 
old.  I  remember  his  telling  about  his  going  after  a  slave  to 
Hudson  on  the  Hudson  River,  which  was  a  great  port  for  land- 
ing cargoes  of  slaves  as  they  were  brought  in.  He  bought  a 
stout,  finely-built  black  man,  about  twenty  years  old,  and, 
putting  a  rope  around  his  neck,  tied  the  end  of  it  to  his  saddle, 
and,  as  he  said,  "  trotted  him  all  the  way  home."  He  described 
him  as  a  man  he  could  not  trust.  "  Why,"  said  he,  "  I  was 
one  day  going  to  give  the  fellow  a  sound  whipping  with  a  cart 
whip,  and  made  him  stand  off  so  that  I  could  get  a  good  sweep 
of  the  whip,  when  the  rascal  ran  away,  and  it  was  two  weeks 
before  I  caught  him  again." 

A  very  grotesque  incident  occurred  about  this  time  at 
Gad  Cowles's  store.  Farmington  was  not  only  the  center  of 
a  large  trade  with  all  the  surrounding  towns,  but  Gad's  store, 
as  I  have  said,  was  the  principal  one  in  the  village.  It  was  in 
a  large  brick  block  of  two  stories  and  a  high  attic.  Each  story 
and  the  cellar  were  filled  with  his  goods,  the  attic  being  de- 
voted to  agricultural  implements.  One  day  in  the  early  sum- 
mer a  young  man  from  Burlington  came  to  the  store  to  buy 
some  farming  tools,  and  Gad  sent  him  up  to  the  attic  to  pick 
them  out  for  himself.  There  was  a  trap  door  in  the  floor  of 
the  attic,  with  another  directly  beneath  it  in  the  story  below. 
These  both  opened  upwards,  but  they  were  old  and  a  good 
deal  worn.  The  Burlington  man,  in  walking  about  in  his 
stumbling  way,  came  upon  the  upper  trapdoor,  which  gave 


SOME  FURTHER  INTRODUCTORY  MATTER.      189 

way  under  him,  and  let  him  down  upon  the  next  trapdoor, 
which,  in  its  turn,  gave  way  and  let  him  headlong  down  into  the 
store  below.  Gad  was  at  the  time  waiting  on  a  lady  customer, 
when  the  man  came  down  upon  them,  striking  a  nest  of  brass 
kettles,  and  bending  them  out  of  shape,  besides  breaking  his 
own  ribs,  as  well  as  seriously  injuring  himself  internally. 
Gad,  who  was  an  irascible  man,  swore  at  him  for  his  stupidity, 
and  said  he  wished  there  had  been  another  trapdoor  that 
opened  into  hell.  However,  he  was  a  very  kindly  man,  and 
when  he  saw  ho\v  badly  the  man  was  hurt,  he  had  him  taken 
over  to  his  own  house,  where  he  kept  him  for  half  a  year  be- 
fore he  was  well  enough  to  be  taken  home.  He  had  a  long 
course  of  illness,  and  came  very  near  to  his  death.  At  last, 
about  midwinter,  it  was  thought  it  would  be  safe  to  take  him 
home,  and  his  brother,  who  was  stone  deaf,  came  with  an  open 
farm  sled  and  a  pair  of  horses,  a  feather  bed  and  blankets  being 
laid  upon  the  sleigh,  that  he  might  lie  comfortably  and  be  kept 
warm.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  snow  on  the  ground,  but  a 
warm  rain  had  softened  it  all  and  filled  the  brooks  and  ditches 
with  froth.  On  the  way  home  the  brother  drove  through  one 
of  these  brooks  to  water  his  horses.  On  getting  to  the  gate  at 
home  he  called  out  to  his  two  sisters  to  come  and  help  get  his 
brother  in.  They  came  rushing  out,  and  when  they  got  to  the 
sleigh  they  said,  "  Where  is  he?  "  The  brother  twisted  around 
to  get  a  back  look,  and  saw  at  once  that  the  sleigh  was  empty. 
All  were  horrified,  and  the  brother  drove  back  on  the  road  as 
fast  as  he  could.  When  he  reached  the  brook  where  he  had 
watered  his  horses,  he  found  the  invalid  lying  in  the  water, 
with  his  head  just  out  of  it,  but  wet  through  and  almost  frozen. 
He  was  taken  home,  where  he  had  a  course  of  fever,  which  it 
took  him  till  the  next  summer  to  recover  from.  With  the 
warm  weather  of  summer  the  poor  man  was  able  to  get  out 
and  walk  about  a  little  in  the  sunshine.  Just  after  he  began 
to  venture  out  he  \vent  to  a  neighbors,  where  they  were  about 
to  hang  a  good-sized  dog.  Their  barn  was  on  a  hillside,  with 
the  roof  on  the  back  side  coming  to  the  ground,  and  a  high 
front  on  the  other  side.  The  dog  had  a  rope  around  his 
neck,  which  was  brought  over  the  ridge  of  the  roof  and 
fastened  to  ©ne  of  those  frames  that  the  joiners  nail  on  such 
roofs  when  they  are  shingling.  Our  invalid  wanted  very  much 


190  REMINISCENCES. 

to  see  the  whole  proceeding,  and  climbed  up  to  the  ridge  of 
the  roof,  where  he  could  see  the  dog  pushed  off  and  hanging 
by  the  rope.  But,  alas,  just  as  the  dog  was  pushed  off,  and 
his  weight  pulled  heavily  on  the  rope,  the  wooden  frame  flew 
off  and  caught  the  poor  man  between  the  legs  and  carried  him 
headlong  over  the  high  side  of  the  roof.  The  dog  escaped  un- 
hurt, but  our  invalid  had  some  of  his  bones  broken  and  was 
laid  up  for  another  long  spell  of  illness.  I  never  learned  any- 
thing of  his  later  history. 

The  practice  of  private  watching  with  sick  people  was  in 
vogue  when  I  was  a  boy.  I  think  such  a  thing  as  a  trained 
nurse  was  unknown  in  Farmington,  if  anywhere  else.  No 
matter  how  desperately  ill  a  person  might  be,  his  own  family 
took  care  of  him  during  the  day,  and  the  neighbors  came,  one 
after  another,  to  watch  at  night.  The  family,  during  the  day, 
would  engage  the  watcher  for  the  night.  I  think  the  service 
was  always  a  neighborly  gratuity,  to  be  repaid  in  kind  if  there 
should  be  need.  I  remember  being  requested  when  I  was 
fourteen  to  watch  with  Edward  L.  Hart,  a  schoolmate  of  about 
my  own  age,  and  a  nephew  of  Simeon  Hart,  who  kept  the 
village  academy,  and  with  whom  Edward  made  his  home. 
Edward  was  very  sick  with  some  kind  of  fever.  I  got  to  the 
house  about  nine  o'clock,  was  instructed  carefully  as  to  the 
medicines  to  be  given,  and  then  was  left  alone  for  the  night 
in  the  sick  boy's  room.  There  were  two  medicines  to  be  given 
him  alternately  every  half-hour,  three  drops  of  one  and  a  tea- 
spoonful  of  the  other.  I  had  an  awful  struggle  with  an  al- 
most overpowering  drowsiness,  but  kept  awake  and  faithful 
to  my  duties  till  about  midnight.  I  was  then  administering 
the  regular  medicine,  as  I  supposed,  when  Edward  screamed 
out  that  I  had  given  him  the  wrong  medicine,  and  I  found  that 
I  had  given  him  a  teaspoonful  of  that  of  which  I  should  have 
given  him  three  drops.  I  supposed  I  had  killed  him,  and  at 
once  rushed  up  to  Mr.  Hart's  room  and  burst  in,  exclaiming, 
"  Oh,  I  have  given  Edward  the  wrong  medicine."  Mr.  Hart 
sprang  up  and  ran  down  stairs  in  his  nightgown,  and  I  ex- 
plained at  once  what  I  had  done.  The  boy,  in  the  meantime, 
was  bent  up  with  pain.  In  a  moment  Mr.  Hart  gave  him  a 
strong  alkali  (the  medicine  was  a  sharp  acid),  and  the  poor 
boy  was  at  once  in  a  state  of  wild  explosion,  enough  to  have 


SOME  FURTHER  INTRODUCTORY  MATTER.      191 

strangled  him,  and  it  was  a  wonder  how,  in  his  weakness,  he 
lived  through  the  strain.  His  condition  was  now  so  critical 
that  the  family  staid  up  and  took  charge  of  him  for  the  rest  of 
the  night,  and  I  went  home  and  to  bed.  The  doctor  was  sent 
for,  and  he  said  the  treatment  had  apparently  helped  him  by 
clearing  the  foul  matter  out  of  his  stomach,  and  from  that  time 
he  began  to  get  better,  and  before  long  was  well. 

In  connection  with  this  matter  of  private  watching,  a  good 
story  is  told  of  Governor  Roger  S.  Baldwin  when  a  young 
man.  My  grandfather,  who  lived  in  New  Haven,  was  quite 
old  and  feeble,  and  friends  of  the  family  came  at  night  to  watch 
with  him.  Mr.  Baldwin,  who  was  a  near  relative,  took  his 
turn.  He  got  there  about  bedtime,  and  the  family  explained 
to  him  fully  about  the  different  medicines,  and  went  to  bed, 
leaving  him  to  his  solitary  watch.  There  were  four  different 
kinds  of  medicine,  one  to  be  given  every  quarter  of  an  hour. 
Mr.  Baldwin  gave  the  old  gentleman  the  first  dose  and  then 
seated  himself  comfortably  in  a  rocking-chair,  waiting  for  the 
next  quarter-hour  to  come.  As  he  sat  waiting  he  suddenly 
opened  his  eyes  and  it  was  broad  daylight.  He  sprang  to  the 
old  gentleman's  bedside,  expecting  to  find  him  dead,  but  he 
was  sound  asleep.  He  woke  him,  and  asked  him  how  he  felt. 
''  Oh,"  said  he,  "  what  a  refreshing  sleep  I  have  had."  This 
was  all  the  old  gentleman  needed,  and  he  began  to  get  better  at 
once.  Mr.  Baldwin  did  not  like  to  have  his  neglect  of  his 
patient  known,  and  poured  out  into  the  slop-pail  about  as  much 
as  he  would  have  used  if  all  the  medicine  had  been,  properly 
administered,  and  it  was  several  years  before  the  real  facts 
became  known.  The  family,  who  had  no  suspicion  what  had 
happened,  were  loud  in  their  praise  of  Mr.  Baldwin,  as  having 
benefited  the  old  gentleman  greatly  by  his  faithful  care  of  him. 

There  is  a  further  incident  that  I  have  always  remembered 
with  much  interest,  and  which  is  well  worth  preserving. 
Horace  Cowles,  in  my  youth,  was  one  of  the  immovably  up- 
right men  of  the  town.  He  had  the  public  confidence  in  the 
highest  degree  as  a  man  of  probity.  No  man  could  settle  an 
estate  more  intelligently  or  more  honestly,  and  he  was  often 
employed  in  such  services.  But,  with  it  all,  he  was  not  a 
popular  man.  He  held  very  strong  views  as  to  the  enforce- 
ment of  laws  against  crime,  and  was  unyielding  in  his  views 


192  REMINISCENCES. 

on  matters  of  political  and  moral  reform.  Among  those  who 
thoroughly  disliked  him  was  a  very  profane  old  gentleman, 
who  lived  near  the  center,  who  seemed  thoroughly  to  hate 
him,  and  \vho  could  not  refrain  from  sometimes  assailing  him 
with  insulting  language  as  he  went  by.  It  turned  out  that  all 
this  time  this  old  gentleman,  who  had  a  large  property,  had 
made  his  will,  and  had  made  Horace  Cowles  his  executor.  Mr. 
Cowles  dying  before  he  did,  he  made  a  new  will  and  appointed 
some  other  person  executor,  but  during  those  years  of  his 
violent  and  insulting  attacks  upon  Mr.  Cowles  he  had  not 
dared  to  trust  anybody  else  to  settle  his  large  estate. 

I  gave  an  important  incident  of  my  sea  life  in  a  former 
chapter  (ante,  p.  27),  and  did  not  intend  to  speak  of  any  other, 
but  a  few  matters  occur  to  me  as  worth  relating.  I  sailed  from 
New  York  for  Canton  in  the  barque  Marblchcad,  about  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  in  May,  1838,  going  out  of  the  harbor 
side  by  side  with  the  ship  Brooklyn,  bound,  like  us,  to  Canton. 
We  lost  sight  of  her  when  it  became  dark,  and  the  next  morn- 
ing could  not  recognize  her  among  the  many  sails  that  we  saw 
in  the  distance.  We  did  not  see  her  again  until  we  made  Java 
Head,  and  were  entering  the  strait  between  Java  and  Sumatra. 
There  we  found  the  Brooklyn  going  with  us,  side  by  side, 
as  we  had  left  New  York  harbor.  We  found,  on  exchanging 
very  cordial  salutes,  that  she  crossed  the  line  the  same  day 
with  us,  was  off  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  the  same  day,  and 
made  the  island  of  St.  Paul  in  the  Indian  Ocean  the  same  day, 
and  now  had  made  Java  Head  with  us,  and  yet  we  had  never 
seen  her.  This  illustrates  the  difficulty  of  one  ship  pursuing 
another  over  the  broad  ocean.  Our  cruisers  in  our  late  war 
had  a  long  pursuit  after  the  Alabama,  and  for  several  weeks 
without  any  success. 

When  we  passed  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  it  was  in  July, 
the  very  middle  of  the  southern  winter.  We  had  snow  storms 
and  cold  rains,  and  much  of  the  time  very  severe  gales,  and  all 
the  while  heavy  weather.  After  leaving  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Cape  Verde  Islands  we  had  run  in  a  straight  line  towards 
Cape  Horn,  till  we  reached  a  point  about  half  way  between 
the  capes  and  about  three  hundred  miles  south  of  the  latitude 
of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Head  winds  compelled  us  to  take 
this  course.  At  last  we  got  a  fair  and  strong  west  wind,  and, 


SOME  FURTHER   INTRODUCTORY  MATTER. 


193 


heading  to  the  east,  we  ran  for  twenty-five  days  in  a  straight 
course.  The  captain  would  get  an  observation  whenever  a  bit 
of  blue  sky  showed  itself,  but  had  to  depend  largely  on  the 
casting  of  the  log.  We  had  now  reached  the  middle  of  the 
Indian  Ocean,  and  the  captain  came  on  deck  at  dark  and  told 
us  that  he  thought  we  should  make  the  island  of  St.  Paul  in 
the  course  of  the  night,  and  ordered  us  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout. 
About  midnight  we  saw  in  the  distance  a  blazing  light,  which 
we  took  to  be  that  of  a  whaler  trying  out  oil,  and  the  captain 
gave  orders  to  heave  to  and  lie  till  morning.  When  the  morn- 
ing broke  there  lay  the  island  about  three  miles  off.  This  was 
exceedingly  good  navigating  over  such  a  stretch  of  water  and 
in  such  weather. 

While  on  this  part  of  our  passage  the  gale  became  so  severe 
that  wre  could  carry  nothing  but  reefed  topsails,  and  finally 
we  had  to  lie  to  and  leave  the  ship  to  take  the  brunt  of  the 
storm  as  she  could.  This  "  lying-to  "  is  effected  at  sea  by 
putting  the  fore  and  main  topsails  at  a  different  angle,  so  that 
one  is  filled  one  way  and  the  other  the  opposite,  by  reason  of 
which  the  ship  lies  still.  The  helm  is  then  lashed  in  a  certain 
position,  and  all  hands  go  below,  often  for  a  day,  sometimes  for 
two  or  three  days. 

When  we  reached  Java  Head  an  official  of  the  Dutch  gov- 
ernment, to  which  the  island  of  Java  belongs,  came  off  in  a 
boat,  and  with  a  good  deal  of  pomp  and  ceremony,  to  examine 
our  papers.  He  was  a  native  Javanese,  with  a  stove-pipe  hat 
on,  that  some  sea  captain  had  given  him,  a  long-skirted  coat, 
the  gift  of  some  traveler,  some  very  short  duck  pantaloons,  and 
no  vest,  collar,  or  shoes.  He  apparently  did  his  business  very 
well,  but  he  w7as  one  of  the  most  comical  sights  that  I  ever 
sawr,  and  all  the  more  so  for  his  utter  unconsciousness  that  he 
was  not  exceedingly  well  got  up. 

We  staid  a  week  at  Batavia,  the  city  of  Java,  hoping  to  get 
some  freight  for  Canton.  We  were  nearly  in  ballast.  We 
finally  got  a  part  of  a  cargo  of  sandal  wood,  which  was  to  be 
used  by  the  Chinese  solely  in  burning  incense  to  their  god 
"  Josh  "  —  a  rather  curious  business  for  a  Christian  ship. 

In  going  from  Batavia  to  Singapore,  where  we  went  for 
more  freight,  we  had  to  pass  close  through  the  strait  between 


194 


REMINISCENCES. 


the  islands  of  Borneo  and  Sumatra.  This  region  was  at  that 
time  and  had  long  been  infested  by  native  pirates,  who  used  to 
go  about  in  fleets  of  sailboats,  called  feluccas.  Many  stories 
were  told  of  their  attacks  upon  ships.  We  had  a  sailor  on 
board  who  had  been  a  good  deal  on  vessels  sailing  there,  and 
who  gave  this  story  of  one  of  his  experiences.  The  ship  was 
an  English  one  sailing  from  Bombay  for  Canton.  When  off 
Borneo  a  fleet  of  feluccas  swarmed  down  upon  them  and  very 
soon  the  deck  was  full  of  the  pirates.  The  captain  and  crew 
fought  them,  but  were  overborne  by  their  numbers,  and  were 
finally  compelled  to  retreat  to  the  poop  deck,  which  was  over 
the  ship's  cabin  and  much  above  the  main  deck.  The  steward's 
storeroom  was  directly  below  the  cabin  and  accessible  from  it. 
The  captain  sent  the  steward  down  to  bring  up  his  bottles  of 
wine,  of  which  he  had  a  good  supply,  and  threw  them  all  over 
the  deck.  They,  of  course,  broke,  and  the  deck  became 
covered  with  broken  glass.  The  pirates,  being  all  barefooted, 
could  not  find  a  place  to  step,  and  very  soon  all  fled  over  the 
ship's  side,  abandoning  all  attempt  to  take  the  vessel.  While 
we  were  in  that  vicinity  our  ship  got  aground  and  lay  so  for 
three  or  four  hours.  While  we  lay  there  a  large  fleet  of  feluccas 
came  off  and  hovered  about  us  for  a  half-hour,  but  finally 
went  away. 

An  incident  of  some  interest,  and,  perhaps,  worth  telling  or, 
occurred  on  my  first  voyage.  This  was  in  the  brig  Fortune, 
which  went  to  Malaga  on  the  south  shore  of  Spain  for  a  cargo 
of  wine,  raisins,  and  almonds.  The  wine  was  stowed  at  the 
bottom,  acting  as  ballast,  and  on  top  of  it  was  a  great  quantity 
of  raisins  in  boxes,  of  shelled  almonds  in  boxes,  and  of  al- 
monds in  the  shell  in  large  gunny  bags.  When  we  were  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Azores  a  storm,  which  had  been  brew- 
ing for  a  couple  of  clays,  came  down  upon  us  with  great  vio- 
lence. It  was  about  the  2oth  of  September,  and  the  storm  was 
the  one  we  call  on  shore  "  the  Equinoctial."  I  think  it  is  only 
a  matter  of  superstition  that  leads  us  to  so  regard  and  name  it. 
However  that  be,  it  deserved  in  our  case  all  the  severe  terms 
we  could  apply  to  it.  In  the  course  of  it  our  brig  sprung  a 
serious  leak  in  her  bows,  and  the  captain  finally  decided  that 
we  must  lighten  her  forward.  We  broke  through  the  bulk- 
head that  separated  the  forecastle  from  the  hold,  and,  forming 


SOME  FURl^HER  INTRODUCTORY  MATTER. 


195 


a  line  to  the  ship's  rail,  passed  out  bags  of  almonds  and  boxes 
of  shelled  almonds  and  raisins  and  threw  them  over  the  ship's 
side.  We  kept  this  up  for  two  hours,  and  the  bags  and  boxes 
floated  behind  us  as  far  as  we  could  see  in  the  thick  weather, 
looking,  as  they  rose  and  fell,  like  an  enormous  sea  serpent 
following  us.  The  sailors  who  were  stationed  in  the  fore- 
castle, thoughtful  of  the  interests  of  the  rest  as  well  as  of 
themselves,  opened  all  our  chests,  and,  crowding  our  clothes 
together  in  the  middle,  emptied  boxes  of  raisins  into  one  end 
and  boxes  of  shelled  almonds  into  the  other,  till  the  chests  were 
full;  and  we  all  had  all  the  raisins  and  almonds  we  could  eat 
for  the  rest  of  our  voyage  home. 

While  we  were  at  Canton,  on  my  second  voyage,  our  ship 
lay  at  Wampoo  Reach,  a  stretch  of  river  a  few  miles  below 
Canton,  where  all  the  foreign  ships  lie,  occupying  over  a  mile 
of  the  river.  They  remain  at  anchor  here  during  the  whole 
time,  the  .masters  being  rowed  up  to  the  city  by  their  boats' 
crews,  and  the  cargo  being  brought  down  by  lighters.  The 
vessels  lie  so  near  together  that  the  crews  get  somewhat  ac- 
quainted, and  each  is  asked,  and  is  generally  ready  to  tell, 
what  sort  of  captain  and  officers  he  has,  and  whether  he  has 
a  comfortable  life  on  board.  There  was  one  Captain  D.  of  the 
ship  P.,  who  had  among  us  all  a  very  hard  reputation  as  almost 
a  monster  of  cruelty  among  his  men,  working  them  unmerci- 
fully and  inflicting  blows  and  cuffs  as  his  pleasure  or  temper 
inclined  him.  We  got  all  this  from  his  men,  who  complained 
bitterly  of  him.  He  and  his  ship  were  still  there  when  we  left, 
and  I  heard  nothing  further  of  either.  He  was  at  this  time 
about  thirty  years  old.  Over  thirty  years  after  I  was  attend- 
ing our  Supreme  Court  at  Litchfield,  and  at  dinner  at  the  hotel 
I  found  myself  sitting  by  the  side  of  stranger,  who  proved  to 
be  a  man  of  intelligence,  and  had  evidently  seen  a  good  deal 
of  the  world,  and  who  had  the  manners  of  a  gentleman.  We 
soon  got  into  conversation,  and  it  came  out  that  he  had  been  a 
sea  captain  in  his  early  life  and  had  made  numerous  voyages 
to  Canton  in  command  of  the  ship  P.  Here,  then,  was  the  old 
terror  of  the  sailors  of  my  time,  the  redoubtable  Captain  D. 
of  my  early  memory.  I  did  not  let  on  that  I  had  once  been  a 
sailor,  and  had  seen  him  and  his  ship  at  Canton,  and  had 
brought  away  and  always  retained  a  bad  opinion  of  him.  I  let 


196  REMINISCENCES. 

him  treat  me  as  a  gentleman,  which  he  did  perfectly,  and  kept 
the  grotesqueness  of  the  incident  all  to  myself.  I  have  thought 
it  best  not  to  give  his  name  or  that  of  his  ship  in  full,  but  the 
initials  that  I  have  given  are  the  correct  ones. 

In  looking  back  from  time  to  time  on  the  period  which  I 
spent  upon  the  sea,  especially  that  of  my  East  India  voyage, 
I  have  always  felt  thankful  for  that  experience.  To  one 
brought  up  at  ease  in  a  refined  family  with  no  experience  of  the 
hardships  of  life,  it  was  a  school  of  manliness  and  self-reliance 
and  courage.  The  labor  was  generally  hard  and  often  very 
severe,  and  sometimes  involved  great  exposure  and  serious 
peril,  to  be  met  only  by  a  resolute  and  unflinching  determina- 
tion to  do  faithfully  what  was  required  to  be  done.  It  was  a 
great  place  for  discipline  and  no  place  for  shirking  or  coward- 
ice. But  we  had  much  that  was  very  enjoyable.  The  vast, 
restless,  indomitable  sea  was  always  most  impressive,  and 
sometimes  awful  in  its  grandeur.  One  can  never  come  away 
from  a  year's  life  in  its  constant  presence  the  same  man  that 
he  was  before.  Its  varying  moods  make  a  perpetual  study, 
while  there  is  a  thrill  in  the  sudden  meeting  with  other  voyagers 
in  the  wide  expanse  where  we  had  felt  an  oppressive  sense  of 
loneliness,  and  the  brief  exchange  of  salutations  with  them  as 
they  pass  us,  seeming  to  come  out  of  the  unknown  and  to  go 
away  into  it.  And  there  is  something  that  fills  the  imagination 
in  the  vast  outspread  of  sails  that  a  ship  carries,  like  the  wings 
of  a  mighty  bird.  And  it  is  with  no  small  sense  of  more  than 
human  power  that  one  at  a  ship's  helm  turns  the  vast  mass 
this  way  and  that  at  his  will.  I  took  my  turn  at  the  wheel, 
and  was  often  thrilled  by  the  quick  obedience  of  the  huge 
ship  to  every  motion  of  my  hand.  Steamers  have  now  very 
generally  taken  the  place  on  these  voyages  of  the  old  sailing 
ships,  and  with  them  have  gone  the  old  grace  of  motion  and 
beauty  of  swelling  canvas.  While  the  change  is  of  vast  benefit 
to  the  world,  one  who  indulges  in  sentiment  over  it  could  al- 
most mourn  as  Burke  did  over  the  passing  away  of  the  age  of 
chivalry.  All  these  things  get  idealized  as  they  recede  into  the 
remote  past.  But  I  remember  with  great  satisfaction  the  real 
hardships  and  dangers  of  the  life,  and  not  the  least  that  on  the 
way  home  from  the  East  Indies  we  were  taken  by  a  Portuguese 
pirate,  and  were  in  momentary  expectation  of  being  butchered. 


DAMON  AND  PYTHIAS.  197 

I  have  devoted  a  chapter  to  this  incident  (ante,  p.  27).  I  have 
all  my  life  long  been  a  more  manly  man  for  these  hardships. 
I  would  not  have  exchanged  those  two  years  for  any  twro  years 
at  home,  however  wisely  I  might  have  spent  them,  both  for  the 
greatly-needed  benefit  to  my  health,  and  as  a  part  of  my  educa- 
tion for  my  place  in  the  world.  There  is  one  thing  that  would 
not  often  be  considered  in  such  a  case,  and  that  is  the  knowl- 
edge of  naval  matters  that  one  gets,  and  could  get  in  no  other 
way,  which  might  be  of  great  advantage  to  him.  The  knowl- 
edge that  I  acquired  of  ships  and  navigation  has  repeatedly 
proved  very  useful  to  me  in  my  profession  of  the  law,  and  would 
have  been  much  more  so  if  I  had  lived  in  a  seaport  town. 
After  all,  I  should  hesitate  about  advising  a  young  man,  whose 
health  or  special  circumstances  did  not  require  it,  to  take  an 
East  India  voyage.  It  would  be  a  life  not  only  of  hardship 
and  danger,  but  of  serious  moral  peril.  There  could  not  be  a 
wider  open  door  for  vice.  But  the  vice  is  of  the  lowest  and 
least  attractive  kind  to  a  young  man  of  any  delicacy  or  re- 
finement, to  say  nothing  of  moral  principles.  It  had  no  at- 
traction for  me.  I  was  as  safe  from  its  contamination  as  if  I 
had  been  sitting  by  my  father's  fireside.  In  view  of  all  I 
gained,  physical  and  moral,  during  my  life  at  sea,  it  was  a  wise 
and  kind  Providence  that  led  me  to  that  signal  experience  in 
my  life. 


DAMON  AND  PYTHIAS. 

In  the  western  part  of  the  town  of  Farmington  there  lived 
in  my  boyhood  a  farmer  named  William  Cowles.  He  had  a 
large  and  well-cultivated  farm,  and  two  sons,  Ezekiel  and  Wil- 
liam. He  was  one  of  the  best  of  men,  and  never  failed  in  all 
states  of  the  weather  to  attend  with  his  family  our  Congrega- 
tional Church  in  Farmington  village,  some  three  miles  distant 
from  his  home.  His  sons  grew  up  to  be  the  same  sort  of  excel- 
lent men  that  their  father  had  been.  It  is  of  them  that  I  am  to 
narrate  an  interesting  occurrence.  I  use  their  true  names,  as  I 
desire  that  they  should  have  the  credit  of  what  I  relate. 

Before  their  father's  death  the  two  boys  had  married  and 
their  father  had  built  for  each  a  comfortable  dwelling-house  on 


198  REMINISCENCES. 

the  farm,  on  the  same  highway  with  his  own  house  and  not 
more  than  eighty  rods  from  it  and  from  each  other.  Here  they 
lived  as  if  one  family,  working  together  on  the  farm  and  paying- 
all  their  expenses  from  the  common  fund.  After  their  father's 
death  they  continued  for  a  while  to  live  in  the  same  way,- but 
soon  after  concluded  to  divide  the  farm  between  them.  They 
estimated  the  value  of  the  houses  and  the  different  lots,  and 
took  the  advice  of  judicious  neighbors  on  the  subject.  At  last 
they  settled  upon  a  division  which  they  thought  fair,  and  noth- 
ing remained  but  to  execute  the  deeds.  The  night  after  this 
settlement  Ezekiel,  the  elder,  went  to  bed,  but  found  that  he 
could  not  sleep.  His  mind  was  filled  with  the  thought  of  the 
transaction,  and  the  more  he  reviewed  it  the  more  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  had  received  more  than  his  share.  This  troubled 
him  so  that  as  soon  as  he  was  dressed  in  the  morning  he  started 
for  his  brother  William's  to  tell  him  how  he  felt  about  it. 
On  his  way  he  met  his  brother,  who  had  gone  through  the 
same  experience,  and  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had 
received  more  than  his  share,  and  was  on  his  way  to  Ezekiel's 
to  tell  him  so.  I  believe  that  in  the  circumstances  they  finally 
decided  to  let  the  division  stand  as  they  had  agreed  upon  it. 
However  that  may  be,  the  incident  stands  as  a  most  striking 
case  of  brotherly  affection  and  unity,  as  well  as  of  an  unselfish 
and  predominating  spirit  of  justice.  History  has  immortalized 
the  names  of  Damon  and  Pythias  as  those  of  devoted  and  self- 
sacrificing  friends,  but  the  names  of  these  brothers  are  well 
worthy  of  what  little  I  can  do  in  these  Reminiscences  for  their 
preservation  and  honor. 

A  very  similar  case,  perhaps  only  an  Arabic  legend,  has 
been  charmingly  told  of  in  verse  by  Clarence  Cook,  and  I  can- 
not forbear  to  place  its  heroes  in  pleasant  association  with  mine. 
The  poem  is  entitled  Abrain  and  Zimri.  It  is  as  follows: 

Abram  and  Zimri  owned  a  field  together  — 

A  level  field  hid  in  a  happy  vale  ; 

They  ploughed  it  with  one  plough,  and  in  the  spring 

Sowed,  walking  side  by  side,  the  fruitful  seed. 

In  harvest,  when  the  glad  earth  smiled  with  grain, 

Each  carried  to  his  home  one-half  the  sheaves, 

And  stored  them  with  much  labor  in  his  barns. 


DAMON  AND  PYTHIAS. 

Now  Abram  had  a  wife  and  seven  sons, 
But  Zimri  dwelt  alone  within  his  house. 

One  night  before  the  sheaves  were  gathered  in, 
As  Zimri  lay  upon  his  lonely  bed 
And  counted  in  his  mind  his  lonely  gains, 
He  thought  upon  his  brother  Abram's  lot, 
And  said,  "  I  dwell  alone  within  my  house, 
But  Abram  hath  a  wife  and  seven  sons, 
And  yet  we  share  the  harvest  sheaves  alike. 
He  surely  needeth  more  for  life  than  I ; 
I  will  arise,  and  gird  myself,  and  go 
Down  to  the  field,  and  add  to  his  from  mine." 

So  he  arose,  and  girded  up  his  loins, 
And  went  out  softly  to  the  level  field  ; 
The  moon  shone  out  from  dusky  bars  of  clouds, 
The  trees  stood  black  against  the  cold  blue  sky, 
The  branches  waved  and  whispered  in  the  wind. 
So  Zimri,  guided  by  the  shifting  light, 
Went  down  the  mountain  path,  and  found  the  field, 
Took  from  his  store  of  sheaves  a  generous  third, 
And  bore  them  gladly  to  his  brother's  heap, 
And  then  went  back  to  sleep  and  happy  dreams. 

Now,  that  same  night,  as  Abram  lay  in  bed, 
Thinking  upon  his  blissful  state  in  life, 
He  thought  upon  his  brother  Zimri's  lot, 
And  said,  "  He  dwells  within  his  house  alone, 
He  goeth  forth  to  toil  with  few  to  help, 
He  goeth  home  at  night  to  a  cold  house, 
And  hath  few  other  friends  but  me  and  mine  " 
(For  these  two  tilled  the  happy  vale  alone)  ; 
"  While  I,  whom  Heaven  hath  very  greatly  blessed, 
Dwell  happy  with  my  wife  and  seven  sons, 
Who  aid  me  in  my  toil  and  make  it  light, 
And  yet  we  share  the  harvest  sheaves  alike. 
This  surely  is  not  pleasing  unto  God  ; 
I  will  arise  and  gird  myself,  and  go 
Out  to  the  field,  and  borrow  from  my  store, 
And  add  unto  my  brother  Zimri's  pile." 

So  he  arose  and  girded  up  his  loins, 
And  went  down  softly  to  the  level  field  ; 
The  moon  shone  out  from  silver  bars  of  clouds, 
The  trees  stood  black  against  the  starry  sky, 


199 


200  REMINISCENCES. 

The  dark  leaves  waved  and  whispered  in  the  breeze. 

So  Abram,  guided  by  the  doubtful  light, 

Passed  down  the  mountain  path  and  found  the  field, 

Took  from  his  store  of  sheaves  a  generous  third, 

And  added  them  unto  his  brother's  heap  ; 

Then  he  went  back  to  sleep  and  happy  dreams. 

So  the  next  morning  with  the  early  sun 
The  brothers  rose,  and  went  out  to  their  toil ; 
And  when  they  came  to  see  the  heavy  sheaves, 
Each  wondered  in  his  heart  to  find  his  heap, 
Though  he  had  given  a  third,  was  still  the  same. 

Now  the  next  night  went  Zimri  to  the  field, 
Took  from  his  store  of  sheaves  a  generous  share 
And  placed  them  on  his  brother  Abram's  heap, 
And  then  lay  down  behind  his  pile  to  watch. 
The  moon  looked  out  from  bars  of  silvery  cloud, 
The  cedars  stood  up  black  against  the  sky, 
The  olive-branches  whispered  in  the  wind ; 
Then  Abram  came  down  softly  from  his  home, 
And,  looking  to  the  right  and  left,  went  on, 
Took  from  his  ample  store  a  generous  third, 
And  laid  it  on  his  brother  Zimri's  pile. 
Then  Zimri  rose  and  caught  him  in  his  arms, 
And  wept  upon  his  neck,  and  kissed  his  cheek, 
And  Abram  saw  the  whole,  and  could  not  speak, 
Neither  could  Zimri.     So  they  walked  along 
Back  to  their  homes,  and  thanked  their  God  in  prayer 
That  he  had  bound  them  in  such  loving  bands. 


GROWTH   IN   UNSPIRITUALITY. 

For  many  years  I  was  a  regular  attendant  on  Rev.  Dr.  Bur- 
ton's Park  Church  prayer-meetings,  almost  always  taking  a 
part  in  them.  I  was  at  the  time  a  deacon  in  the  church.  I 
used  occasionally  to  read  some  article  which  I  had  written  dur- 
ing the  week,  working  out  some  practical  religious  thought, 
though  I  more  often  presented  the  matter  in  a  conversational 
way.  I  find  some  of  these  monographs  among  my  accumu- 
lated papers,  and  decide  to  insert  one  here,  partly  that  my 
friends  may  see  my  manner  of  dealing  with  such  subjects,  and 
partly  because  the  subject  is  one  of  the  greatest  religious  im- 


GROWTH  IN  UNSPIRITUALITY.  2Ql 

portance.  I  retain  the  title  which  I  then  gave  it,  "  Growth  in 
Unspirituality."  This  well  expresses  my  subject,  though  I 
use  in  it  a  word  which  is  hardly  recognized  by  the  dictionaries. 

In  my  boyhood  and  early  manhood  I  used  to  hear  the  doc- 
trine taught,  from  the  pulpit,  in  the  Sabbath-school,  and  in 
the  religious  papers,  that  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  voluntary  and 
gratuitous  interposition  of  which  was  considered  essential  to 
the  soul's  salvation,  was  a  most  sensitive  thing,  easily  grieved 
away,  and  grieved  away  by  the  soul's  mere  indifference;  and, 
when  once  withdrawing,  departing  forever,  and  leaving  the 
soul,  even  in  earthly  life,  in  a  moral  death,  from  which  it  could 
never  be  rescued.  Fifty  years  of  study  of  God's  word  and  of 
prayerful  inquiry  and  reflection  have  brought  me  to  believe  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  patient  beyond  all  our  conceptions  of 
patience,  persistent,  never  discouraged,  ever  watching  for  an 
open  door  into  the  heart,  and  never  leaving  a  human  soul  while 
life  lasts.  I  fully  believe  that  those  lines  so  often  sung  express 
an  absolute  truth,  and  were  inspired  by  this  very  Holy  Spirit  — 
that, 

"  While  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return. " 

But  in  accepting  this  doctrine  we  are  letting  drop  out  a 
ground  of  most  potent  appeal  to  non-religious  men,  and  one 
that  has  often  been  effectively  used,  and  which  addresses  itself 
to  the  fears  of  men;  and  an  address  to  men's  fears  has  often 
been,  at  least  apparently,  the  only  one  that  could  move  them. 
They  were  told  that  they  might,  by  shutting  up  their  hearts 
against  the  entrance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  grieve  it  away,  and  be 
abandoned  by  it,  and  left  stranded  and  hopeless;  and  that  while 
they  were  wholly  unconscious  of  it;  doomed  already  without 
knowing  it. 

Now,  while  I  far  prefer  to  appeal  to  men's  love  rather  than 
to  their  fears,  I  freely  admit  that  an  appeal  to  their  fears  is  en- 
tirely legitimate,  and  that  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  should  never 
be  laid  out  of  consideration,  and  in  many  cases  should  be 
pressed,  in  all  their  awful  solemnity,  upon  the  attention  of  the 
inattentive  and  indifferent  and  careless  soul.  And  I  admit, 
14 


202  REMINISCENCES. 

too,  that  my  view  of  the  patience  and  persistency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  its  pursuit  of  us  in  our  indifference  and  wanderings 
does  take  away  a  most  weighty  consideration  that  might  often 
be  very  effectively  used  in  our  appeals  to  the  non-religious. 

But  there  is  another  principle  at  work,  the  potency  of  which 
should  be  considered,  and  which  to  my  apprehension  supplies 
all  that  we  need  as  a  ground  of  appeal  to  men's  fears.  And 
that  principle  is  this:  That  while  those  who  seek  after  a 
spiritual  life  grow  in  spirituality,  those  who  are  indifferent  to 
it  are  all  the  while  growing  more  and  more  unspiritual  —  more 
and  more  hardened.  We  do  not  stand  still.  Motion  is  life, 
and  stagnation  is  death.  The  air  above  us  is  full  of  winds, 
and  the  sea  beneath  us  is  full  of  tides;  and  our  bark,  as  we  float 
on  the  sea  of  life,  is  never  stationary  —  or  never  long  so.  All 
souls  are  moving,  upward  or  downward.  No  man  is  quite 
what  he  was  ten  years  ago.  Now  this  growth  in  spirituality, 
or  in  unspirituality,  is  not  wholly  the  result  of  the  operation 
upon  us,  or  withdrawal  of  operation,  of  a  supernatural  power. 
It  is  in  a  great  measure  an  entirely  natural  operation.  A 
faculty  used  and  cultivated  grows,  and  a  faculty  not  used 
shrinks  and  perhaps  disappears.  Darwin,  in  his  Origin  of 
Species,  shows  clearly  how  in  animals  and  plants,  individuals 
of  the  same  type,  placed  in  new  surroundings,  under  new 
necessities,  develop  into  different  species.  While  there  is  great 
dissent  from  his  views  as  to  the  origin  and  development  of  man, 
yet  all  the  world  agrees  to  his  general  views  as  to  the  growth, 
through  the  special  use  of  some  organs  and  the  entire  disuse 
of  others,  of  totally  different  organisms  out  of  the  same  parent 
organism.  But  we  see  this  abundantly  illustrated  in  human 
beings.  Everybody  understands  it.  Now,  by  this  same 
natural  law  the  cultivation  of  our  spiritual  nature  leads  to  a 
growth  and  strength  of  that  nature ;  while  the  neglect  of  its  cul- 
tivation, and  especially  a  course  of  life  that  tends  not  merely 
not  to  promote  our  spirituality  but  to  promote  our  non-spiritu- 
ality, as  surely  leads  to  the  growth  and  strength  of  an  un- 
spiritual nature.*  We  see  this  illustrated  strikingly  by  the 
fact,  often  remarked  upon,  that  a  great  many  more  young 


*  Emerson  says  :     "  The  force  of  character  is  cumulative  ;  all 
the  foregone  days  of  virtue  work  their  health  into  us. " 


GROWTH  IN  UNSPIRITUALITY.  203 

people,  in  proportion,  become  religious  than  middle-aged  and 
old  people.  Reasoning  on  general  principles  we  might  ex- 
pect the  fact  to  be  otherwise.  Young  people  are  full  of  animal 
life;  full,  too,  of  golden  expectations  from  mere  earthly  life. 
The  world  as  it  lies  before  them  has  a  great  charm  for  them. 
They  have  not  reached  the  age  of  reflection  and  disillusion. 
The  old  people,  on  the  other  hand,  have  found  how  false  is  all 
that  glitters;  they  have  been  sobered  by  seeing  the  sad  reality 
of  things,  by  the  loss  of  those  near  to  their  hearts,  by  the  deaths 
of  companions  around  them.  They  have  reached  the  age  of 
reflection,  and  often  have  abundant  leisure  for  it.  Yet  they 
do  not  often  yield  to  the  pressure  of  religious  truth.  They 
never  entered  upon  a  spiritual  life,  and  so  they  have  constantly 
moved  away  and  away  from  such  a  life.  They  have  moved 
further  and  further  away  from  the  point  of  impressible  contact 
with  spiritual  influences. 

Now  undoubtedly  there  is  a  corresponding  movement  dur- 
ing all  this  time  on  the  part  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  so  that,  while 
this  downward  growth  is  in  great  measure  a  natural  one,  yet 
there  are  also  supernatural  influences  at  work.  The  life  of  the 
man  who  seeks  for  a  high  spiritual  life  is  a  perpetual  prayer  to 
God  for  his  help  in  it;  and  that  help  will  be  given.  The  life 
of  the  man  who  has  no  desire  for  a  spiritual  life  is  a  perpetual 
rejection  of  spiritual  influences;  and  while  those  influences  may 
still  follow  him,  yet  as  the  door  of  his  heart  becomes  more  and 
more  closed  against  them,  those  spiritual  forces  are  of  less  and 
less  value  to  him,  and  may  become  less  and  less  active  in  his 
behalf. 

We  have,  then,  a  terrible  truth  here  that  we  can  press  with 
great  effect  upon  non-religious  men;  for  is  it  not  a  terrible  one? 
What  misfortune  can  be  greater  than  that  of  a  constant  reced- 
ing from  the  reach  of  divine  influences,  of  a  growing  impene- 
trability of  the  heart.  Yet  we  see  it  all  about  us.  There  is  no 
mistaking  the  fact  that  this  man  and  that  whom  we  meet  in 
the  intercourse  of  life  has  no  spiritual  experience  whatever  — 
no  conception  of  what  spiritual  life  is.  I  remember  when  at 
Washington  a  few  years  ago  that  I  went  one  Sunday  morning 
into  the  large  office  of  the  hotel  and  took  a  seat  for  the  very  pur- 
pose of  studying  the  characters  of  the  throng  that  filled  the 
wide  room.  Men  were  standing  about  in  groups,  talking 


204  REMINISCENCES. 

earnestly,  so  that  I  often  easily  caught  enough  to  know  what  it 
was  about.  There  were  probably  some  members  of  Congress. 
some  lobbyists,  many  politicians.  From  almost  every  quarter 
came  up  an  occasional  profane  expression,  and  the  talk  was 
evidently  all  on  secular  matters,  while  most  of  the  men  them- 
selves looked  hard  and  greedy  and  self-indulgent.  I  said  to 
myself,  among  these  hundred  people  I  cannot  see  one  that  I 
think  is  a  religious  man.  It  is  true  this  was  an  exceptional 
gathering  and  place,  and  there  may,  after  all,  have  been  here 
and  there  a  good  man  among  them;  but  get  together  a  hun- 
dred men  on  some  secular  occasion,  and  how  much  profanity 
will  you  hear?  How  much  low  ribaldry?  How  much  that 
goes  to  show  that  in  the  vast  majority  God  is  not  in  all  their 
thoughts?  And  yet  this  spiritual  life  is  all  that  there  is  of  life 
that  is  really  worth  having.  It  is  all  that  will  survive  death  — 
all  that  will  constitute  our  life  in  that  world  that  is  so  near  to 
all  of  us. 

How  we  should  struggle  to  preserve  our  natural  faculties 
if  we  found  ourselves  in  danger  of  losing  them.  And  yet  what 
would  the  loss  of  them  be  by  the  side  of  the  loss  of  our  spiritual 
faculties?  To  me  the  face  of  nature  is  full  of  wonderful  beauty. 
It  seems  to  me  no  enthusiastic  lover  of  music  ever  enjoyed  the 
finest  musical  performance  more  than  I  enjoy  looking  upon  a 
beautiful  landscape.  Well,  suppose  I  found  my  sight  prema- 
turely failing,  and  all  this  panorama  passing  away  from  my 
saddened  eyes  forever.  What  would  I  not  do  for  the  restora- 
tion of  my  sight?  What  skilled  oculist,  however  far  away  or 
expensive,  would  I  not  seek?  Yet  what  would  the  loss  of  my 
earthly  sight  be  to  the  loss  of  all  spiritual  vision!  I  have  a 
near  relative,  of  about  my  own  age,  who  has  been  a  clergyman 
all  his  life,  who  from  early  youth  has  been  an  enthusiastic  lover 
of  music  and  is  a  performer  of  rare  excellence  upon  a  violin. 
He  hardly  goes  anywhere  without  taking  his  violin  with  him. 
Well,  for  nearly  twenty  years  he  has  been  gradually  losing  his 
hearing.  But  he  could  still  hear  the  strains  of  his  own  violin, 
and  while  at  the  concerts  he  attended  he  lost  some  of  the  notes, 
he  could  yet  hear  enough,  by  sitting  near,  to  get  great  enjoy- 
ment from  the  performance.  But  at  last  his  hearing  is  utterly 
gone.  The  concert  becomes  only  a  pantomime,  emitting  no 
sound.  His  beloved  violin  makes  no  audible  response  to  his 


DR.   JOHN  CHAPMAN.  205 

familiar  and  appealing  touch.  Now,  what  would  he  not  have 
done  to  save  his  hearing?  What  remedy,  however  costly  or 
difficult  to  be  procured,  would  he  not  have  sought  for  and  ap- 
plied? Yet  what  is  this  loss  of  hearing  to  the  loss  of  all  power 
to  hear  the  whisper  of  God  to  the  heart?  And  what  is  it  to  lose 
the  spiritual  sight  and  the  spiritual  hearing  both?  To  feel  that 
the  whole  heart  is  sealed  against  spiritual  light  and  spiritual 
voices. 

It  is  as  the  Evangelist  says,  "  To  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given,  and  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  even 
that  which  he  hath." 

"However  sharp  the  thorns  of  poverty, 

The  pangs  of  parting,  failure's  bitterness, 

The  pain  of  filling  loving  eyes  with  tears, 

Thou  shalt  not  fear  them.     Thou  shalt  dread  but  this  : 

To  know  thyself  as  vile  among  the  pure, 

With  men  of  honor  know  thyself  untrue  ; 

To  feel  debased  before  the  climbing  hills, 

Abashed  amid  the  still,  aspiring  wood, 

And  unresponsive  to  the  beckoning  sky ; 

To  wish  that  God  were  not,  and  restlessly 

To  seek  remoteness  from  his  influence, 

Until  the  spirit's  garden  grows  awaste. 

—  Embrace  all  ills  but  this,  and  find  them  sweet !  " 


DR.  JOHN  CHAPMAN. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  one  of  the  noblest  men  I 
ever  knew  was  Dr.  John  Chapman  of  London.  He  was  one 
of  my  best  friends.  I  first  met  him  in  1872,  and  when  again 
abroad  with  my  wife  in  1874  and  1875  we  were  much  at  his 
house,  which  was  indeed  our  home  in  London.  He  was  then, 
and  had  been  for  many  years,  the  principal  editor  of  the  West- 
minster Review,  which  was  described  by  an  English  writer  as 
"  the  mouthpiece  of  the  most  advanced  and  the  most  respected 
thinkers  of  the  day,  and,  by  reason  of  the  breadth  of  thought, 
the  enlightenment,  the  toleration,  and  the  spirit  of  progressive 
inquiry  in  the  cause  of  reason  and  truth  which  pervaded  its 
scholarly  pages,  no  less  than  by  the  attention  directed  to  scien- 
tific subjects  and  the  consideration  given  to  art  as  an  indis- 


206  REMINISCENCES. 

pensable  part  of  human  education,  as  occupying  the  position 
of  the  leading  organ  of  the  liberal  and  philosophical  school  of 
the  time."  During  our  Civil  War  the  Westminster  Review 
stood  firmly  and  unwaveringly  on  our  side  and  did  a  great  deal 
to  turn  the  best  public  opinion  of  England  in  our  favor.  Since 
then  Dr.  Chapman's  articles,  especially  on  social  and  political 
subjects,  have  commanded  public  attention  and  had  a  wide  and 
positive  influence.  I  was  told  in  London  that  an  article  in  the 
review  on  the  administration  of  affairs  by  the  government  in 
India  had  led  to  a  serious  modification  of  the  political  plans  of 
the  ministry.  This  article  was  at  first  attributed  to  John  Stuart 
Mill,  the  first  political  philosopher  in  England,  but  Dr.  Chap- 
man told  me  himself  that  he  wrote  it.  He  was  all  this  while 
a  physician  in  large  practice.  His  habit  was  to  get  up  at  five 
o'clock  all  the  year  round,  make  himself  a  cup  of  coffee,  and 
work  with  his  pen  till  nine  o'clock,  when  he  ate  his  breakfast 
with  his  family,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  day  was  a  hard-working 
physician. 

He  was  intensely  interested  in  all  the  reform  movements 
of  the  day  —  in  the  extension  of  the  franchise  among  the  com- 
mon people,  in  woman  suffrage,  in  sanitary  improvements, 
in  methods  of  benefiting  the  poor,  and  in  wider  education.  He 
set  to  work  earnestly  to  rescue  the  many  charitable  foundations 
which  had  been  perverted  from  their  original  purpose  and  be- 
come the  prey  of  those  who  should  have  been  their  protectors. 
He  gave  great  offense,  and  injured  himself  in  his  professional 
standing,  by  the  conflict  which  he  went  into  with  some  of  the 
physicians  who  were  getting  the  benefit  of  these  perversions. 
It  was  a  strange  anomaly  that  in  the  midst  of  all  this  he  was  an 
utter  disbeliever  in  the  existence  of  a  God  and  of  a  future  life. 
It  is  surprising  that,  with  the  want  of  belief  in  all  that  I  valued 
most,  I  should  have  been  drawn  to  him  or  he  to  me.  Yet  he 
became  my  very  warm  friend,  and  told  a  friend  of  mine  that  if  I 
lived  in  London  he  should  want  to  have  me  for  his  most  in- 
timate friend.  I  asked  him  at  one  time  how  he  could  care  so 
much  for  making  people  happier  and  better  if  this  short  life 
was  all.  He  replied  that  he  desired  it  all  the  more  for  this 
reason,  for  if  this  life  is  all  he  wanted  to  have  people  get  the 
most  out  of  it.  I  was  at  dinner  one  day  at  his  house,  sitting  on 
his  right  hand,  while  a  colonel  in  our  army  sat  on  his  left.  My 


DR.   JOHN  CHAPMAN.  207 

wife  sat  at  the  lower  end  of  the  table  with  Mrs.  Chapman  and 
two  other  ladies.  By  some  means  the  subject  of  prayer  was 
spoken  of,  and  the  colonel,  who  proved  to  be  a  Swedenborgian, 
spoke  very  strongly  of  its  good  effect  on  the  suppliant,  even 
if  it  did  not  bring  the  answer  sought.  Dr.  Chapman  then 
turned  to  me,  saying:  "  Let  us  hear  what  Mr.  Hooker  says." 
At  this  I  entered  on  something  of  a  discussion  of  the  whole 
matter,  all  conversation  at  the  table  being  dropped  and  all  lis- 
tening to  me.  What  I  said  was  substantially  this:  "  I  cannot 
be  at  all  sure  that  we  shall  get  what  we  pray  for.  It  may  be  the 
very  best  thing  for  us  not  to  get  it.  But  back  of  the  whole 
question  lies  the  great  question  whether  there  is  a  God  to  hear 
our  prayer.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  can  say  that  I  am  sure  there 
is.  My  whole  life  has  been  spent  in  dealing  practically  with 
questions  of  proof,  and  I  have  learned  to  have  confidence  in 
the  movements  of  my  own  mind.  I  cannot  go  into  processes 
here;  I  can  give  you  only  results.  But  I  could  not  feel  more 
sure  that  God  exists  and  controls  earthly  affairs  if  I  could  see 
him  with  my  eyes  or  feel  his  hand  taking  hold  of  mine.  And, 
if  God  exists,  I  cannot  doubt  that  he  is  omnipotent  and  all- 
wise  as  well  as  supremely  benevolent;  and  such  a  being,  send- 
ing us  into  this  hard  world  as  his  children,  would  not  fail  to 
keep  a  fatherly  interest  in  us  and  would  love  to  have  us  pray  to 
him."  Dr.  Chapman,  restrained  by  delicacy  from  coming  into 
serious  conflict  with  his  guests,  yet  told  us  of  some  of  the  ex- 
periments that  had  been  made  with  regard  to  prayer,  which 
seemed  to  show  that  it  had  signally  failed  in  those  instances. 
My  wife  told  me  after  dinner  that  Mrs.  Chapman,  who  listened 
attentively  to  our  talk,  told  her  that  if  she  could  believe  as  I 
did  she  should  love  to  pray. 

I  never  saw  Dr.  Chapman  after  1875,  though  I  occasionally 
had  a  letter  from  him.  A  few  years  later  he  removed  to  Paris, 
still  keeping  up  his  editorship  of  the  Westminster  Review. 
He  soon  got  into  a  large  practice  there,  which  he  continued  till 
his  death  in  November,  1894.  I  do  not  know  his  exact  age  at 
that  time,  but  he  must  have  been  over  seventy.  He  had  con- 
ducted the  review  from  1851  —  forty-three  years.  An  interest- 
sketch  of  him  is  given  in  the  Westminster  Review  for  January, 
1895. 


208  REMINISCENCES. 

Dr.  Chapman  was  a  man  of  exceedingly  fine  presence  — 
six  feet  tall,  well  filled  out  and  erect,  and  with  a  countenance 
of  the  highest  manly  beauty.     It  was  full  of  benignity  and  yet 
full  of  strength. 

There  was  a  brilliant  circle  of  scientists  and  litterateurs 
who  from  time  to  time  served  under  him  as  contributors  to  the 
review.  Among  them  was  George  Eliot,  who  was  for  a  time 
his  assistant  in  the  editorship.  There  were  also  Herbert 
Spencer,  George  Henry  Lewes,  James  and  Harriet  Martineau, 
and  others  well  known  in  the  literary  world.  I  met  a  parlor 
full  of  them  at  an  evening  entertainment  at  his  house. 

Dr.  Chapman  was  buried  at  Highgate  Cemetery,  near  Lon- 
don, in  the  midst  of  his  contemporary  workers,  and  close  by 
the  grave  of  George  Eliot.  The  obituary  sketch  of  him  to 
which  I  have  referred  contains  the  following  passage,  which  is 
well  worthy  of  quotation  here : 

During  the  forty-three  years  of  his  editorship  of  the  Review  — 
a  task  phenomenal  in  one  man's  life,  joined  as  it  was  to  the  oner- 
ous work  of  a  large  medical  practice  —  Dr.  Chapman  used  his  in- 
comparable intellect,  his  remarkable  powers  and  his  indomitable 
energy  to  maintain  the  reputation  of  the  Review  with  the  excel- 
lence of  its  earlier  teaching,  and  his  most  fervent  wish  when  he 
died  was  that  it  might  continue  to  be  so  maintained,  not  alone  for 
the  sake  of  the  glorious  associations  of  the  past,  but  for  the  sake 
of  the  liberalism  of  to-day  and  of  generations  to  come  —  main- 
tained as  a  steadfast  organ  of  the  broader  ideas,  the  wider  views, 
of  human  interests  of  which  he  was  so  fearless  a  pioneer,  and  in 
whose  cause  he  labored  ceaselessly,  at  immense  personal  sacrifice, 
for  so  many  years. 

It  is  not  possible  here  to  do  more  than  allude  to  the  many  rare 
and  admirable  qualities  of  his  nature  —  singularly  sweet  qualities 
which  endeared  him  to  the  friends  whose  unspeakable  privilege  it 
was  to  know  and  be  associated  with  him.  Neither  can  more  than 
a  passing  reference  now  be  made  to  his  great  services  to  medicine 
and  his  many  valuable  discoveries  in  that  science. 

Dr.  Chapman  may  justly  be  characterized  as  an  exceptional 
man  of  an  exceptional  age,  and  those  who  knew  him  intimately 
must  revere  his  nobility  of  character  and  his  staunch  fearlessness 
of  conscience,  even  as  they  admired  the  uncommon  order  of  his 
physical  presence  and  his  great  mental  gifts.  To  those  his  name 


THE  KEARSARGE.  209 

will  be  synonymous  with  all  that  is  good,  with  all  that  tends  to 

promote  civilization,  and  with  all  that  is  best  for  humanity  at 
large. 


THE  KEARSARGE. 

One  of  the  most  romantic  incidents  of  our  late  war,  and  of 
intense  interest  and  great  satisfaction  and  pride  to  us  of  the 
North,  was  the  fight  between  the  United  States  cruiser 
Kearsargc  and  the  Confederate  ship  Alabama.  It  occurred  off 
Cherbourg,  France,  on  the  ipth  of  June,  1864.  After  a  fierce 
contest  the  Kearsarge  sank  the  Alabama.  The  Kearsarge  her- 
self in  1894  was  wrecked  upon  a  rock  in  the  Caribbean  Sea, 
where  her  bones  have  ever  since  lain  bleaching.  A  most  inter- 
esting visit  which  I  paid  to  her  in  1890,  as  she  was  undergoing 
repairs  at  the  navy  yard  at  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  will, 
I  think,  make  a  very  proper  subject  of  notice  in  these  Remin- 
iscences. It  should,  however,  be  preceded  by  an  account  of 
the  fight,  which  so  many  are  too  young  to  remember  and  which 
has  hardly  yet  taken  its  full  place  in  history. 

A  writer  in  the  Springfield  Republican,  early  in  February, 
1894,  gives  the  following  graphic  account  of  the  fight,  taken 
from  the  lips  of  a  sailor  who  was  in  it  and  who  was  at  the  time 
a  coxswain  on  the  Kearsarge.  It  is  given  in  the  vernacular  of 
the  sea,  and  I  preserve  the  language  in  which  the  old  sailor 
told  the  story: 

We  were  laying  in  Flushing,  Holland,  on  a  Sunday,  when  the 
consul  had  a  dispatch  from  Cherbourg,  saying  that  the  Alabama 
was  there.  The  coronet  was  h'isted  and  a  gun  fired  to  call  the 
crew  aboard.  When  all  hands  got  aboard,  the  captain  had  all 
hands  called  aft  and  told  us  of  the  dispatch,  and  said  :  "  Boys, 
I'm  going  down  to  fight  the  Alabama,  and  I  expect  every  man  of 
you  to  do  your  duty  when  we  get  there. "  This  was  received  by 
the  officers  and  men  with  three  hearty  cheers,  and  in  less  than  an 
hour  we  were  steaming  down  across  the  North  Sea  for  Cherbourg, 
where  we  arrived  on  Tuesday  afternoon  about  one  o'clock. 

We  steamed  up  to  the  east  entrance  of  Cherbourg  harbor, 
which  has  a  breakwater  three  miles  long.  We  lowered  our  third 
cutter,  and  sent  her  ashore  for  information.  We  got  a  good  view 
of  our  antagonist  as  we  was  pulling  by.  I  was  cox'en  of  the  cut- 


2 1  o  REMINISCENCES. 

ter.  After  we  returned,  about  4  P.  M. ,  there  was  a  boat  came  off 
from  shore  with  a  request,  sent  out  by  Capt.  Semmes  through  the 
American  consul,  that  if  Capt.  Winslow  would  stay  out  there 
twenty-four  hours  he  would  come  out  and  fight  him,  and  that  he 
wouldn't  detain  him  over  forty-eight. 

We  waited  from  Tuesday  afternoon  till  Friday  afternoon,  when 
the  crew  began  to  get  discouraged,  and  wanted  to  get  in  and  board 
her  in  the  night.  The  captain  had  them  all  called  aft  again,  and 
said:  " Boys,  don't  get  discouraged.  I  know  Ralph  Semmes.  He 
sent  word  that  he  would  come  out  and  fight  me,  and  he  is  coming. 
Something  has  detained  him  longer  than  he  expected.  And,  boys, 
you've  got  to  do  the  fighting.  It  isn't  your  captain  that  can  do  it, 
but  your  captain's  boys."  This  caused  the  boys  to  give  the  old 
man  three  rousing  cheers,  and  all  went  forrid,  knowing  that 
they'd  got  to  fight. 

On  Sunday,  June  igth,  the  captain  was  on  the  quarter  deck 
with  his  Bible  to  hold  service,  which  was  customary  on  Sunday, 
when  the  man  on  the  topsail  yard  hailed  the  deck,  and  said  : 
"Out  there  she  comes."  The  captain  called  his  boy,  and  said: 
"Boy,  take  my  Bible,  and  bring  up  my  sword  and  revolvers. 
Officer  of  the  deck,  beat  to  quarters.  Quartermaster,  port  your 
wheel.  Officer  of  the  deck,  let  her  go  fast.  Quartermaster, 
steady."  Our  course  then  caused  us  to  run  right  away  from  the 
Alabama  off  shore.  We  could  not  account  for  this,  but  we  knew 
the  captain  was  right  in  whatever  he  did. 

After  getting  off  shore  about  nine  or  ten  miles,  the  captain 
ordered  the  quartermaster  to  starboard  his  helm.  We  now 
headed  right  in  the  direction  of  the  Alabama,  which  we  were 
anxiously  watching,  when,  about  nine  hundred  yards  away,  the 
first  shot  was  fired  from  the  Alabama,  followed  by  thirteen  others, 
some  striking  alongside,  some  going  through  the  rigging  clear  of 
everything;  but  no  damage  was  done  as  yet.  "  Quartermaster," 
called  the  captain,  "  starboard  your  helm  a  little.  Steady." 

We  were  now  within  about  eight  hundred  yards  of  each  other. 
The  order  was  given  to  fire  as  soon  as  we  got  our  guns  to  bear. 
Bang  went  the  little  rifle  on  the  forecastle.  We  watched  the 
course  of  the  shell,  and  saw  it  strike.  Then  the  forrid  pivot, 
the  after  pivot,  and  two  broadside  32-pounders,  which  failed  of 
hitting  the  mark.  The  captain,  coolly  walking  the  deck,  said  : 
"Men,  there's  a  ship  to  fire  at.  Don't  fire  your  shells  into  the 
water,  but  see  what  you're  aiming  at.  Aim  before  you  fire." 
Which  good  advice  the  men  accepted,  and  from  that  on  they 


THE  KEARSARGE.  211 

always  let  the  smoke  clear  away  from  the  enemy's  ship  before 
they  fired,  and  then  they  could  tell  what  they  were  firing  at. 

And  now  the  ball  was  opened  in  good  style.  Shot  was  scream- 
ing over  our  heads.  Shells  were  exploding  uncomfortably  near. 
One  shell  went  through  the  smokestack.  We  were  struck  but 
very  few  times,  mostly  in  the  rigging.  One  of  the  shells  struck 
the  sheathing  that  covered  the  chain,  cut  the  chain,  and  dropped 
into  the  water.  A  few  minutes  after  another  struck  us,  went 
through  the  planking,  struck  an  iron  sheathing  on  one  of  the  tim- 
bers, and  dropped  harmlessly  overboard.  I  was  first  loader  of  a  1 1- 
inch  forrid  pivot.  Charley  Reed  was  first  sponger.  I  should  think 
they  fired  three  hundred  and  fifty  shot  and  shell  at  us,  and  we 
had  fired  about  a  hundred  and  seventy-five.  One  shell  lodged  in 
the  stern  post  and  one  in  the  plank  sheer.  We  were  struck  in  all 
twenty-eight  times,  —  thirteen  in  the  hull  and  the  remainder  in 
the  rigging.  Some  of  the  Alabama's  shells  would  go  screaming 
over  our  mast-heads,  and  some  would  strike  short.  When  we  had 
been  fighting  about  forty  minutes,  one  of  our  shells  cut  away  the 
Alabama's  mizzen  halyards,  which  caused  her  flag  to  come  part 
way  down.  A  few  minutes  afterwards  a  n-inch  shell  from  the 
forrid  pivot  struck  her  mainmast.  After  the  firing  had  been  go- 
ing on  about  fifty-five  minutes,  the  Alabama  kept  off  to  run  for 
port,  knowing  that  she  was  whipped.  Finding  that  they  couldn't 
get  away  from  us,  they  hauled  their  colors  down,  and  we  received 
orders  to  cease  firing.  But  in  a  few  minutes  another  gun  was 
fired  from  the  Alabama,  at  which  our  captain  said:  "  Give  them 
another  shot,  boys.  I  guess  they  haven't  got  enough  yet."  This 
caused  a  broadside  to  be  fired  from  the  Kearsarge,  with  such 
deadly  aim  that  they  jumped  on  the  mizzen  boom  and  held  up  a 
white  flag  as  a  signal  to  cease  firing,  as  the  battle  was  evidently 
over  for  good. 

They  immediately  lowered  a  boat,  putting  in  twelve  wounded 
men,  and  sent  them  to  the  Kearsarge,  with  a  message  by  the 
officer  in  charge  that  they  had  surrendered,  and  asking  for  assist- 
ance, as  they  were  sinking.  The  officer  asked  permission  to  go 
back  and  rescue  the  men,  as  he  had  his  boat  manned,  which 
request  being  granted,  they  pulled  towards  the  sinking  ship, 
which  sank  before  they  reached  it.  They  rescued  a  few  of  the 
officers  in  the  water.  We  succeeded  with  our  two  boats  that 
wern't  stove  in  rescuing  seventy-four.  The  English  yacht  Deer- 
hound  came  down  among  the  men,  and  Capt.  Semmes,  swimming 


212  REMINISCENCES. 

alongside,  called  out:  "I'm  Captain  Semmes;  for  God's  sake, 
save  me  ! "  He  thus  escaped  on  the  Deerhound. 

After  the  battle,  and  we  got  the  men  aboard  our  ship,  each  man 
picked  out  a  man  from  the  Alabama  about  his  own  size,  and 
offered  him  the  use  of  a  suit  of  his  clothes.  I  might  say,  gave 
him  a  suit,  for  I  never  see  mine  again.  As  soon  as  they  got  dry 
clothes  on,  the  bo'sen's  whistle  was  sounded,  calling  all  hands  to 
"  splice  the  main  brace. "  As  soon  as  our  crew  had  gone  round, 
the  Alabama's  crew  was  called  to  "  splice,"  and  to  see  which  could 
put  in  the  neatest  splice.  Immediately  after  this  the  Alabama  men 
were  distributed  round  our  different  messes  to  take  dinner,  which 
was  served  in  abundance,  as  the  cook  had  been  told  that  we  were 
going  to  have  company. 

At  four  o'clock  that  afternoon  the  prisoners  were  all  paroled, 
and,  in  their  parting  from  our  ship,  the  remark  was  frequently 
made  :  "  Boys,  if  we'd  knowed  what  kind  of  treatment  we'd  a 
received,  you  wouldn't  a  had  to  fight  us  as  you  did."  That  was 
their  feelings  after  getting  whipped. 

I  went  on  board  the  Kearsarge  as  an  ordinary  seaman,  became 
an  able  seaman,  then  the  cox'en  of  the  third  cutter,  and  was  made 
captain  of  the  foretop  and  master's  mate  after  the  engagement. 

This  graphic  account  of  the  fight  from  one  who  was  in  the 
thick  of  it  is  well  worth  preservation,  and  I  do  what  little  I  am 
able  in  my  unpretending  book  to  effect  this.  My  own  visit  to 
the  Kearsarge  was,  as  I  have  stated,  in  the  summer  of  1890. 
After  her  loss  at  sea  in  1894  this  incident,  very  interesting  to 
me  at  the  time,  came  back  to  my  mind  with  a  special  interest, 
and  I  sent  the  following  communication  on  the  subject  to  the 
Hartford  C  our  ant: 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Courant : 

There  are  few  of  our  people  who  were  old  enough  to  be 
thrilled  by  the  incidents  of  our  late  war  who  did  not  feel  a  pang 
at  the  news  of  the  wreck  of  the  Kearsarge  a  few  days  ago.  To 
the  writer,  who  had  had  the  privilege  of  walking  upon  her  deck 
in  tearful  affection  and  reverence,  it  brought  a  great  sorrow.  The 
story  of  her  desperate  fight  with  the  Alabama,  the  rebel  cruiser 
which  had  become  the  terror  of  our  merchant  vessels,  in  which 
the  Kearsarge  sank  her  antagonist,  is  known  to  every  one  as  a 
matter  of  remembrance  or  of  history. 


THE  KEARSARGE. 


213 


In  the  summer  of  1890  I  spent  several  days  at  the  Portsmouth 
navy-yard  visiting  a  naval  officer  stationed  there,  who  was  an  old 
friend.  The  Kearsarge  was  then  in  dry  dock  there  undergoing 
repairs.  She  was  high  and  dry  above  the  water,  supported  by 
props  of  timber.  I  looked  at  her  with  great  interest ;  but  it  was  a 
painful  sight  to  see  her  out  of  her  native  element  and  stuck  up  in 
the  air  so  awkwardly  and  painfully.  It  seemed  as  if  she  must 
groan  from  the  pain  and  the  indignity. 

The  day  before  I  was  to  leave,  the  repairs  on  her  bottom  had 
been  completed,  and  she  was  to  be  hauled  out  of  the  dock  into  the 
stream.  My  friend  took  me  on  board  and  introduced  me  to  Capt. 
Crowninshield,  who  was  in  command  of  her,  and  got  permission, 
which  was  readily  granted,  for  me  to  stay  on  board  during  the 
operation.  The  captain  received  me  very  graciously,  and  intro- 
duced me  to  several  of  his  officers,  who  were  a  fine-looking  set 
of  men.  When  introduced  to  the  captain  as  Mr.  Hooker  of  Hart- 
ford, he  asked  me  if  I  was  of  the  family  of  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Hooker,  who  was  the  founder  of  the  city.  I  told  him  I  was  the 
sixth  in  direct  descent  from  him.  He  then  told  me  that  he  was 
from  Salem,  of  an  old  Puritan  family.  He  seemed  greatly  to 
value  New  England  blood  and  traditions.  His  wife  soon  after 
came  on  board,  and  he  had  chairs  brought  to  the  quarter  deck  for 
us.  It  was  a  curious  incident  that,  on  being  introduced  to  her, 
she  asked  me  if  I  was  related  to  a  certain  lady,  mentioning  the 
name  of  my  wife. 

A  dry  dock,  which  probably  few  of  your  readers  have  seen,  is 
a  capacious  structure  built  upon  the  land,  and  so  placed  as  to 
receive  the  depth  of  water  from  the  sea  that  will  float  the  vessel 
that  is  to  be  repaired.  It  is  provided  with  a  huge  double  gate  on 
the  seaward  side,  which  opens  outward,  and,  when  the  dock  is 
full  of  water,  the  vessel  is  hauled  in  through  the  open  gateway. 
When  she  is  in  the  gate  is  closed,  and  powerful  pumps  throw 
the  water  out,  and,  as  the  vessel  settles  down,  supporting  props 
are  placed  under  her,  so  that,  when  the  water  has  disappeared, 
she  stands  high  and  dry  resting  on  her  props,  and  with  all  below 
her  water-line  accessible  for  repairs.  The  hauling  of  a  vessel  out 
of  the  dry  dock  is  merely  the  reversing  of  the  process.  The  huge 
double  gate,  of  course,  could  not  be  opened  until  the  outside 
pressure  of  the  water  had  ceased,  which  could  only  be  when  the 
dock  was  full  of  water  again.  The  water  was,  therefore,  let  in 
through  several  small  gates.  It  took  nearly  an  hour  to  thus  fill 
the  dock.  As  the  water  rose  about  the  props  of  the  Kearsarge 


2 1 4  REMINISCENCES. 

and  began  to  relieve  the  pressure  of  the  props,  a  conscious  tremor 
seemed  to  run  through  her  as  if  she  felt  its  friendly  touch  and  her 
returning  buoyancy,  and,  when  she  fully  floated  and  the  props 
were  removed,  she  seemed  to  feel  that  she  was  in  her  native  ele- 
ment again,  and  to  move  about  like  a  giant  waking  from  sleep 
and  stretching  himself.  When  the  dock  was  filled  with  water, 
the  large  gate  was  opened  outward,  and  she  was  hauled  out  into 
the  stream.  Up  to  this  point  the  engineer  in  charge  of  the  dock 
had  directed  the  whole  operation  ;  but  now  the  captain  assumed 
command,  and  the  ship  was  worked  around  to  a  place  at  a  dock, 
where  she  was  made  fast.  The  whole  operation  took  about  three 
hours. 

The  officers  took  great  pride  in  the  fame  of  their  ship.  On 
a  large  brass  plate  in  front  of  their  quarters  was  the  date  of  the 
fight  with  the  Alabama.  I  asked  the  captain  if  the  same  planks 
were  on  the  deck,  and  he  said:  "Yes,  the  very  same."  And  I 
walked  up  and  down  the  deck  thrilled  with  the  thought  of  what 
the  ship  had  done  for  the  country. 

Capt.  Crowninshield  was  expecting  to  be  ordered  at  once  to 
the  coast  of  Honduras,  and  I  saw  by  the  papers  a  few  days  later 
that  he  was  so  in  fact.  It  was  now  August,  the  time  in  that 
region  for  deadly  heat,  hurricanes,  and  yellow  fever,  and  I  could 
not  help  feeling  anxious  for  him  and  the  fine  fellows  who  were 
officers  under  him.  He  returned  safely,  but  how  many  of  his 
officers  I  do  not  know.  I  felt  the  more  anxious  because  I  learned 
that  not  long  before  the  ship  had  been  ordered  in  midsummer  to 
the  coast  of  Africa,  and  while  there  had  lost  by  yellow  fever 
eight  of  her  officers  and  fifty-three  men,  the  surgeon,  whose 
services  were  of  the  greatest  importance,  being  one  of  the  first 
victims. 

SAMUEL  MOSELEY. 

When  I  entered  college  in  the  fall  of  1832,  the  Farmington 
canal  was  in  operation,  a  few  years  old,  but  nearing  its  final 
failure  and  abandonment.  At  this  time  it  furnished,  what 
seemed  to  the  public  of  that  time,  a  very  convenient  and  pleas- 
ant mode  of  traveling,  far  in  advance  of  the  old  stage  coach. 
Most  of  the  people  who  went  to  New  Haven  from  any  of  the 
towns  upon  its  line  went  by  passenger  boats.  These  were  day 
boats  altogether  and  had  spacious  saloons  running  nearly  the 


SAMUEL  MOSELEY.  21  £ 

length  of  the  boats,  with  rooms  at  the  ends  for  cooking  and 
other  domestic  work  and  for  the  boatmen  to  sleep  in.  These 
saloons  were  very  comfortably  fitted  up  for  the  passengers  to  sit 
about  in,  as  well  as  take  their  meals  in,  and  made  the  passage 
to  New  Haven,  which  was  accomplished  in  a  day  from  most 
points  on  the  canal,  a  very  agreeable  opportunity  for  social  en- 
joyment, as  well  as  for  reading  if  one  preferred  it. 

When  I  went  down  at  the  beginning  of  the  fall  term  and 
the  college  year  I  went  by  a  canal  boat,  and  four  of  my  school- 
mates who  were  joining  the  class  went  with  me,  as  well  as  a 
few  others  from  other  places  on  the  line.  My  mother  also 
went  \vith  me,  to  see  to  getting  me  settled  in  my  room.  Half 
of  a  spacious  house  which  had  belonged  to  my  grandfather 
fell  to  her  by  his  will,  and  my  father  had  built  an  addition  to 
it  in  the  rear,  and  had  a  good-sized  sitting-room  and  bedroom 
made  for  me  in  the  second  story  of  the  addition.  While  we 
were  on  our  way  down  my  mother  asked  me  if  I  had  seen  a 
young  man  among  the  passengers  named  Moseley,  who  was 
going  down  to  join  my  class.  She  told  me  that  she  had  had 
quite  a  talk  with  him  and  was  much  interested  in  him.  She 
said  he  told  her  that  he  was  20  years  old  (I  think)  and  had 
worked  on  his  father's  farm  till  a  year  or  two  before,  when  he 
decided  to  prepare  for  college  and  to  study  for  the  ministry. 
His  father,  he  said,  was  not  a  religious  man,  and  was  very 
strongly  opposed  to  his  going  to  college,  and,  above  all,  to  his 
being  a  clergyman;  but  that  his  mother,  who  was  a  very  re- 
ligious woman,  had  set  her  heart  on  his  studying  for  the  minis- 
try, and  he  had  been  persuaded  by  her  to  prepare  for  college. 
My  mother's  account  of  the  young  man  greatly  interested  me, 
and  I  sought  him  out  among  the  numerous  passengers.  I 
found  him  a  tall,  gaunt,  awkward  man,  who  had  seen  very  little 
of  society,  and  was  wholly  without  cultivation,  yet  evidently 
was  full  of  kindliness  and  with  a  certain  light  of  consecration 
on  his  plain  face.  I  was  at  once  drawn  to  the  man  in  pity  for 
his  disadvantages  and  in  sympathy  with  his  earnest  devotion 
to  doing  good.  This  warm  sympathy  went  on  through  many 
years  of  college  and  later  acquaintance. 

When  we  came  to  our  daily  recitations  in  Latin,  Greek,  and 
mathematics,  it  was  very  obvious  that  he  was  very  poorly  fitted 
for  college.  His  Latin  and  Greek  greatly  troubled  him,  and 


2 1 6  REMINISCENCES. 

his  very  natural  recourse  was  to  me,  whose  very  kindly  dis- 
position towards  him  he  had  by  this  time  thoroughly  tested. 
Fortunately  for  me,  my  father,  who  was  a  rare  Latin  and  Greek 
scholar,  had  drilled  me  in  both  those  languages  from  an  early 
age,  so  that  when  I  entered  college  I  was  probably  as  thorough 
a  scholar  in  both  those  languages  as  most  young  men  are  when 
they  graduate.  It  was  thus  easy  for  me  to  help  Moseley  in  his 
Latin  and  Greek  lessons,  and  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to 
give  him  the  help.  I  soon  saw  that  he  needed  a  warmer  vest  for 
the  winter  than  the  one  he  had  on.  I  had  a  very  warm  one  that 
was  somewhat  worn,  but  which  my  mother  had  thought  enough 
for  my  daily  wear  for  the  approaching  winter;  but  I  got  out  a 
very  nice  one  which  she  had  intended  for  my  Sunday  wear  and 
put  it  on.  I  then  sent  a  line  to  Moseley,  asking  him  to  come  to 
my  room.  On  his  doing  so  I  got  out  the  old  vest,  and  said  I, 
""  Here,  Moseley,  is  a  very  warm  vest,  but  getting  old,  and  I 
shall  not  wear  it  any  more.  Would  you  like  it?  "  He  put  up 
"both  hands,  and  exclaimed:  "  Wonderful!  wonderful!  I  was 
just  thinking  what  I  should  do  for  a  warm  winter  vest,  and  now 
the  Lord  has  sent  me  this."  It  was  all  we  could  both  do  to 
"keep  the  tears  from  coming.  Well,  he  put  on  the  vest,  and  as 
I  daily  saw  him  wearing  it  I  had  a  constant  reminder  of  the 
slight  kindness  I  had  done  him  and  of  the  spirit  of  gratitude 
and  trust  in  which  he  had  received  it.  I  speak  of  trust,  for  he 
seemed  to  regard  all  good  that  fell  to  his  needy  lot  as  coming 
directly  from  the  Lord. 

His  home  was  Westfield,  in  the  state  of  Massachusetts,  and 
Farmington  was  about  half  way  between  that  place  and  New 
Haven.  As  a  matter  of  economy  he  was  in  the  habit  of  walk- 
ing the  whole  distance,  stopping  over  night  at  my  father's 
"house  in  Farmington.  Occasionally  I  walked  down  with  him 
from  my  own  home,  my  father  sometimes  carrying  us  half  way 
and  leaving  us  to  walk  the  rest.  On  all  these  tramps  his  in- 
variable rule  was  to  carry  a  package  of  tracts,  and  leave  one 
at  the  door  of  nearly  every  country  house  that  we  passed. 
Wherever  he  was,  or  in  whatever  circumstances,  he  could  never 
iorget  the  duty  that  he  owed  to  his  fellow  men  and  to  the  Lord. 

Moseley  kept  on  till  the  completion  of  his  four  years  at 
college.  I  was  compelled  by  a  partial  failure  of  my  eyesight 
to  leave  college  at  the  end  of  two  years,  spending  those  two 


SAMUEL  MOSELEY.  2 1/ 

years  in  voyages  about  the  world,  of  which  I  have  given 
some  account  in  the  preceding  part  of  this  volume  (pp.  27,  192). 
I  therefore  saw  little  of  him  after  his  sophomore  year.  But 
I  was  told  that  he  remained  the  same  poor  scholar,  and  had  a 
low  position  in  the  class  at  graduation.  He  studied  theology 
in  the  usual  way  and  was  licensed  to  preach. 

After  becoming  a  licensed  preacher  he  began  to  preach 
wherever  he  could  get  the  opportunity,  hoping,  like  other 
young  preachers,  to  get  a  call  to  some  country  pulpit.  Before 
he  left  the  seminary  he  had  become  engaged  to  a  very  worthy 
young  woman,  whom  he  had  met  at  a  New  Haven  commence- 
ment, but  who  resided  in  one  of  our  country  towns.  Of  course 
she  was  looking  forward  anxiously  to  the  time  when  he  should 
get  a  call  and  they  could  be  married.  Well,  the  poor  fellow 
preached  very  dull  sermons,  that  nobody  seemed  to  care  to 
hear,  and  not  only  month  after  month  went  by  but  year  after 
year,  and  found  him  still  at  his  quest.  At  last,  however,  he  re- 
ceived a  call  to  the  church  in  Burlington,  one  of  our  smallest 
and  poorest  towns.  He  and  the  young  lady  were  delighted 
at  this  final  success,  and  immediately  made  their  plans  for  their 
marriage,  and  for  going  to  housekeeping  after  he  had  been  or- 
dained. A  council  was  called,  according  to  the  congrega- 
tional usage,  for  the  purpose  of  examining  him  and  approving 
his  settlement  and  ordaining  him.  Among  the  neighboring 
churches  called  on  to  send  their  pastor  and  a  delegate  to  the 
council,  the  church  at  Farmington,  under  Rev.  Dr.  Porter,  was 
included,  and  I  was  chosen  as  the  delegate  to  accompany  our 
pastor.  I  attended  the  council  with  great  interest,  as  I  had 
known  of  my  friend's  long  and  anxious  waiting  for  this  oppor- 
tunity to  begin  the  pastoral  work  for  which  he  had  for  so  many 
years  been  preparing  himself,  and  which  had  so  long  been  his 
dream.  At  the  council  Rev.  Dr.  Porter  presided,  and  Mr. 
Moseley  was  thoroughly  examined  by  it  as  to  his  theological 
soundness,  which  came  within  the  most  exacting  standards. 
The  church  and  society  were  then  asked  if  there  was  any  op- 
position on  the  part  of  the  people  to  his  settlement  over  them. 
Upon  this  some  of  the  men  of  the  church  appeared  and  read  a 
paper  signed  by  a  considerable  minority  of  the  members,  stat- 
ing, in  a  kindly  but  very  positive  way,  that  they  thought  his 

15 


2j  8  REMINISCENCES. 

preaching  dull  and  uninteresting,  and  especially  as  not  cal- 
culated to  reach  the  younger  portion  of  the  people,  that  his 
sermons  impressed  the  elderly  women  very  favorably,  that  the 
society  was  very  small  and  poor,  I  think  considerably  less 
than  a  hundred  members  in  all,  including  the  women,  and  that 
so  large  a  minority  as  dissented  would  very  seriously  affect  his 
usefulness  and  his  comfort.  The  opposition  did  not  seem  to 
be  factious,  but  very  evidently  was  thoroughly  in  earnest  and 
likely  to  continue  so.  After  the  hearing  the  council  was  left 
by  itself  to  consider  the  matter.  Each  clerical  and  lay  mem- 
ber was  asked  in  his  turn  for  his  opinion.  I  gave  mine  in  favor 
of  his  settlement.  With  all  my  doubts  whether  it  was  on  the 
whole  best  for  the  church  and  society,  I  could  not  but  be  af- 
fected by  great  sympathy  for  my  friend  and  by  my  knowledge 
of  his  history  and  my  confidence  in  his  devotion  to  his  work; 
besides  which,  as  the  church  in  its  poverty  could  not  hope  to 
secure  a  man  of  more  than  the  most  ordinary  ability,  it  seemed 
to  me  it  might  try  to  get  along  with  him,  and,  perhaps,  all  his 
opponents  would  be  won  over  by  his  saintliness  of  spirit  and 
his  faithfulness  as  a  pastor.  But  a  large  majority  of  the  coun- 
cil, including  the  wise  and  good  Dr.  Porter,  voted  against  his 
installation.  Poor  Moseley  was  then  called  in  to  hear  the 
conclusion.  He  came  in,  and  Dr.  Porter  briefly  reviewed  the 
situation,  and  in  the  kindest  and  most  sympathetic  terms  told 
him  of  the  unfavorable  decision. 

Moseley  was  deeply  affected.  I  think  there  were  few  dry 
eyes  in  the  room.  He  said  he  had  been  for  years  preparing 
himself  solely  for  preaching  the  gospel,  and  after  long  waiting 
had  had  this  call.  "  But,"  said  he,  "  it  is  manifestly  God's  will 
that  I  should  not  be  settled  here.  I  accept  his  will  without  com- 
plaint. I  had  feared,  in  view  of  the  opposition  as  it  disclosed 
itself,  that  you  would  think  it  best  not  to  install  me.  I  accept 
your  conclusion  as  a  wise  one  and  as  expressing  the  will  of 
God  in  the  matter."  The  council  then  made  up  its  record  and 
adjourned,  and  poor  Moseley  was  left  to  inform  the  young  lady 
whom  he  was  to  marry  of  the  defeat  of  their  hopes,  and  to  begin 
another  long  tramp  in  quest  of  a  settlement. 

I  saw  but  little  of  him  after  this.  He  got  an  opportunity 
to  preach  for  a  short  time  as  an  agent,  I  think,  of  the  Bible 
Society,  and  two  opportunities  to  supply  for  a  few  months  a 


GENERAL  B.  219 

vacant  pulpit.  But  neither  of  the  latter  opportunities 
brought  him  a  call  to  a  parish,  and  his  marriage  was  necessarily 
deferred  from  year  to  year.  At  last,  before  he  was  forty,  he  lay 
down  and  died.  I  do  not  know  the  illness  that  caused  his 
death,  but  he  was  a  disappointed  and  broken  man,  and  wearied 
with  his  hopeless  quest.  He  was  a  man  of  lovely  consecration 
of  life,  but  lacking  in  vigor  of  intellect.  It  was  a  great  mistake 
to  take  him  from  a  life  of  industrial  labor  when  so  old,  and  to 
send  him  through  college.  As  a  farmer  or  carpenter  he  would 
have  made  one  of  the  best  of  country  deacons  and  have  led  a 
very  useful  life.  His  unbelieving  father,  who  opposed  his  at- 
tempt to  get  a  college  education,  was  in  the  right,  and  his  pious 
mother,  whose  heart  was  set  on  his  preaching  the  gospel,  was  in 
the  wrong.  The  young  lady  to  whom  he  was  engaged  lived  un- 
married for  many  years  and  finally  died  at  the  threshold  of  old 
age. 

I  never  regretted  my  kindness  to  him.  There  are  few 
things  that  I  look  back  upon  with  more  satisfaction.  I  shall 
soon  meet  him  in  the  other  world  and  shall  look  with  more 
than  the  old  kindness  on  the  plain  face  that  will  then  be  lighted 
up  by  a  new  consecration  and  by  a  happiness  that  he  never 
knew  here. 

GENERAL  B. 

I  prefer  not  to  give  the  full  name  of  the  person  about  whom 
I  write.  B.  entered  college  with  me  at  Yale  and  staid  there 
till  some  time  in  sophomore  year,  when  he  went  to  the  military 
academy  at  West  Point.  He  had  been  promised  an  appoint- 
ment there,  and  was  studying  at  Yale  only  to  improve  the  in- 
terval and  make  his  education  more  complete.  His  whole 
ambition  was  for  an  army  life  and  military  glory.  He  came 
from  one  of  the  Connecticut  country  towns,  and  his  mother, 
who  was  a  widow,  was  possessed  of  but  small  means,  which 
she  gladly  expended  for  him,  though,  so  far  as  I  could  learn, 
she  had  little  sympathy  with  his  love  of  military  life.  At  West 
Point  he  was  a  faithful  student,  and  graduated  with  honor,  re- 
ceiving a  lieutenancy  in  the  army.  In  the  Mexican  war  he 
did  good  service  and  rose  to  the  rank  of  captain.  In  our  civil 
war  he  became  a  general,  and  died  a  few  years  after  the  war. 


220  REMINISCENCES. 

I  was  never  much  drawn  to  B.,  and  yet  while  we  were  in 
college  together  there  grew  up  between  us  quite  a  friendly  re- 
lation. As  a  matter  possibly  of  some  honest  thinking,  but 
more,  I  think,  as  one  of  military  spirit  and  bravado,  he  avowed 
from  the  first  an  utter  disbelief  in  all  religious  creeds,  and 
would,  I  think,  have  called  himself  an  atheist.  I  had  occa- 
sional arguments  with  him  on  the  subject.  He  occasionally 
wrote  me  after  he  got  into  the  army,  sometimes  alluding  to  his 
unchanged  religious  opinions,  my  reply  presenting  earnestly 
my  own  opposing  convictions. 

In  the  summer  of  1841  I  was  a  member  of  our  House  of 
Representatives,  the  legislature  sitting  that  year  at  New 
Haven.  To  my  surprise,  one  day  B.  called  on  me  there.  After 
a  cordial  meeting,  he  told  me  that  some  of  his  friends  were 
going  to  bring  before  the  legislature  a  resolution  giving  him 
a  sword,  in  recognition  of  his  gallantry  in  the  Mexican  war, 
and  while  he  did  not  like  to  appear  as  a  personal  applicant  for 
it,  he  desired  to  interest  his  friends  in  the  matter  and  secure 
their  friendly  services,  and  that  it  was  with  great  pleasure  that 
he  found  that  I  was  a  member  of  the  House.  After  hearing 
somewhat  in  detail  his  account  of  what  he  had  done  in  the  war, 
in  which  he  made  out  a  pretty  good  case,  I  said  to  him :  "  Now 
B.  "  (I  could  call  him  only  by  his  old  and  familiar  name  of  B. 
without  prefixing  the  "  Captain  "),  "  you  know  how  I  abhor 
war,  and  this  Mexican  war  I  have  utterly  disapproved  of  as 
iniquitous,  though  as  an  army  officer  you,  of  course,  had  to  go 
into  it,  but  I  cannot  vote  for  having  the  state  give  you  a  sword. 
If  it  were  some  other  person  than  you  I  should  not  only  vote 
but  speak  against  it."  He  was,  of  course,  greatly  disappointed, 
but  expressed  the  hope  that  I  would  not  vote  against  the  reso- 
lution. I  finally  told  him  that  I  would  not  vote  at  all,  but  when 
the  vote  was  taken  would  go  out  of  the  House.  The  whole 
thing  failed,  I  think,  by  an  abandonment  of  the  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  captain. 

Many  years  later  General  B.  (who  had  become  a  general  in 
our  civil  war)  was  stationed  at  Boston,  in  charge  of  the  erec- 
tion or  reparation  of  some  fortifications  in  Boston  harbor. 
While  he  was  there  I  met  him  in  the  street,  and  he  at  once 
told  me  of  his  being  stationed  there,  and  asked  me  to  go 


GENERAL  B.  221 

with  him  down  the  harbor  to  the  work  of  which  he  had  charge. 
I  went  with  him  and  spent  a  large  part  of  the  day  with  him 
there.  He  then  told  me  much  of  his  later  life.  He  had  mar- 
ried a  few  years  before  a  lady  whose  acquaintance  he  made 
there  (I  think  a  Boston  lady),  and  had  a  little  boy  about  a  year 
old,  who  was  the  delight  of  his  life.  Many  other  incidents  of 
his  life  he  mentioned  that  would  not  be  of  general  interest. 
After  my  return  home,  perhaps  a  year  after,  I  received  an 
agonized  letter  from  him,  telling  of  the  death  of  this  child,  his 
only  child.  I  wrote  him  in  reply  what  comforting  suggestions 
I  could  make,  and  spoke  of  the  greater  consolation  one  would 
find  who  had  a  settled  religious  faith.  He  replied  that  he 
would  tell  me  just  what  had  happened,  which  he  knew  would 
interest  me.  He  said  that  the  child  was  taken  very  ill  in  the 
night  with,  I  think,  membraneous  croup,  or  something  very 
quick  and  fatal,  and  that  he  at  once  sent  for  the  doctor,  but  he 
thought  the  child  was  dying  and  remembered  that  it  had  never 
been  baptized.  In  his  horror  at  the  thought  of  it,  he  sent  a 
servant  in  great  haste  for  the  Unitarian  clergyman  at  whose 
church  he  and  his  wife  attended,  and  then,  at  once,  came  the 
thought  that  perhaps  Unitarianism  was  not  the  true  religion, 
and  he  sent  another  servant  for  a  Congregational  clergyman. 
(He  had  been  brought  up  in  a  Congregational  family.)  Before 
either  servant  had  returned,  or  the  doctor  had  got  there,  he 
thought  the  child  was  surely  dying,  and  he  caught  up  a  basin 
of  water,  and,  dipping  his  hand  in  it,  laid  it  on  the  forehead  of 
the  child,  saying  in  solemn  voice:  "  Henry,  I  baptize  thee  in 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Amen." 

The  incident  was  almost  a  grotesque  one,  but  it  shows  how 
deeply  fixed,  even  in  an  estranged  and  denying  and  perhaps 
blaspheming  heart,  are  the  truths  that  one  is  taught  by  parental 
instruction  and  example  to  accept  in  his  childhood.  I 
never  heard  from  General  B.  again  and  have  no  knowledge 
how  far  the  revived  faith  of  his  childhood  remained  by  him 
and  affected  his  future  belief  and  life.  He  died  not  long  after. 
He  had  seen  the  wars  for  which  he  had  in  early  life  expressed 
to  me  a  great  desire,  and  had  attained  an  honorable  rank  in  the 
army,  but  not  the  great  military  distinction  that  had  been  the 
sole  ambition  of  his  life. 


222  REMINISCENCES. 


WILLIAM   H.  IMLAY. 

In  the  summer  of  1852  the  public  heard  with  astonishment 
of  the  failure  of  William  H.  Imlay  of  Hartford.  He  had  been 
regarded  as  the  wealthiest  man  in  Connecticut,  and  though  he 
was  known  to  be  borrowing  money  rather  largely  at  the  banks, 
no  one  thought  that  he  was  seriously  embarrassed.  He  had 
on  his  hands  large  operations  that  required  the  use  of  much 
money.  He  was  rated  as  worth  over  half  a  million,  which  was 
then  a  very  large  estate. 

He  retained  me  as  his  counsel  the  year  after  I  removed  to 
Hartford,  and  thus  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  him.  He  had  ex- 
tensive real  estate  in  the  northern  part  of  Michigan,  and  a  year 
or  two  later  took  me  with  him  there  to  examine  the  property 
and  his  titles,  and  on  our  way  he  told  me  many  very  interesting 
things  with  regard  to  his  own  history. 

His  father  held  an  important  public  office  at  Washington, 
in  which  he  had  the  handling  of  considerable  public  money. 
He  was  a  generous  liver,  given  to  hospitality,  and  careless 
about  money.  He  died  when  William  was  about  fifteen,  and 
upon  his  death  it  was  found  that  he  was  short  in  his  accounts 
about  $10,000.  This  was  a  shocking  occurrence  for  those  early 
times.  His  bondsmen,  who  were  some  personal  friends,  had 
to  make  good  the  amount.  William  was  the  oldest  of  quite  a 
family  of  children.  Of  course  the  family  had  nothing,  and 
this  boy  of  fifteen  had  the  great  burden  of  the  support  of  his 
mother  and  the  other  children  fall  on  him.  With  her  help  he 
got  the  place  of  a  clerk  in  a  store  (a  grocery,  I  think),  and 
worked  with  the  utmost  faithfulness,  turning  in  for  the  family 
support  all  he  got.  He  had  to  work  from  daybreak  till  late  in 
the  evening,  and  he  told  me  that  often,  when  he  got  home  for 
the  night,  he  was  so  utterly  tired  out  that  he  could  not  undress, 
but  threw  himself  on  top  of  the  bed  and  slept  in  his  clothes.  In 
this  way  he  struggled  on  till  the  other  children  were  able  to 
earn  something  and  the  family  needs  were  less.  In  this  severe 
school  he  had  acquired  habits  of  industry  and  economy  and 
learned  the  ways  of  business.  When  he  became  of  age  he  got 
into  a  profitable  business  (I  forget  what  it  was,  or  where),  in 
which  he  accumulated  over  $10,000.  Who  could  have 
blamed  the  poor  boy  for  putting  all  this  into  his  business,  or 


WILLIAM  H.  IMLA  Y. 


223 


investing  it  for  the  benefit  of  the  family?  But  with  a  high 
sense  of  honor  he  took  it  all  and  paid  his  father's  bondsmen 
for  what  they  had  had  to  pay  out  for  him.  He  settled  in  Hart- 
ford early  in  life,  and  all  the  remainder  of  his  life  was  spent 
there.  After  he  became  wealthy  he  was  persuaded  to  invest 
$50,000  in  the  Atlantic  Dock  Company  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
He  told  me  that  the  other  owners,  there  were  but  some  half 
dozen  in  all,  assured  him  that  $50,000  was  all  that  he  would  be 
called  on  to  furnish.  The  undertaking  was  a  magnificent  one, 
promising  great  returns,  but  requiring  the  use  of  a  very  large 
amount  of  money.  A  large  amount  was  raised  by  the  sale  of 
bonds,  a  portion  of  which  Mr.  Imlay  took  as  security  for 
further  advances,  and  was  able  to  sell  only  by  putting  on  them 
his  personal  guarantee.  At  last,  tired  out  with  the  perpetual 
draft  on  his  money  and  his  credit,  he  told  me  that  he  offered  the 
other  members  of  the  company  $75,000  if  they  would  take  his 
stock,  assume  his  obligations,  and  let  him  off;  but  they  would 
not  do  it.  Just  at  this  time  a  son-in-law,  who  was  in  the  paper- 
making  business,  failed,  and  Mr.  Imlay  was  on  his  paper  as 
endorser  for  $175,000.  The  whole  made  too  heavy  a  load  for 
him,  now  getting  on  in  years,  to  carry,  and  he  saw  no  way  but 
to  assign.  Still  his  credit  was  perfect  and  nobody  suspected 
that  he  was  seriously  embarrassed.  This  was  in  the  summer 
of  1852. 

It  was  not  till  this  time  that  I  was  retained  by  Mr.  Imlay 
as  his  counsel,  and  there  are  some  incidents  connected  with 
the  matter  that  I  think  will  be  interesting  to  the  younger  mem- 
bers of  the  profession,  and  not  without  profit  in  the  lesson  that 
they  furnish. 

I  removed  from  Farmington  to  Hartford  in  September, 
1851.  I  had  looked  about  for  an  office  there  in  the  preceding 
May.  Mr.  Imlay  was  at  that  time  building  the  stone  front 
edifice  on  Main  street,  opposite  the  old  State  Capitol,  that  has 
ever  since  been  occupied  by  the  State  Bank.  I  looked  over 
the  offices  in  this  building,  and  thought  very  favorably  of  two 
rooms  in  the  third  story,  and  went  to  see  Mr.  Imlay  about 
them.  They  were  then  lathed  but  not  plastered,  but  I  could 
easily  see  what  the  rooms  would  be.  I  called  on  Mr.  Imlay  at 
his  office,  ascertained  the  rent,  and  agreed  to  take  the  rooms 
in  the  fall.  He  was  to  have  a  lease  drawn  and  ready  for  me  to 


224 


REMINISCENCES. 


take  when  I  came  over.  He  preferred  to  make  the  lease  for 
but  two  years,  stating  that  he  should  undoubtedly  be  ready  and 
glad  to  renew  as  long  as  I  desired  to  stay.  I  assented  to  this. 
When  I  came  over  to  occupy  in  September,  I  very  soon  went 
to  Mr.  Imlay's  office  for  my  lease,  and  he  handed  me  one 
drawn  by  his  clerk,  which  I  took  to  my  office  to  examine.  As 
it  did  not  provide  explicitly  for  all  that  I  thought  I  was  en- 
titled to,  I  carried  it  back  to  Mr.  Imlay  and  stated  my  ob- 
jections. He  yielded  to  my  view  of  the  matter,  and  said  he 
would  have  his  clerk  draw  another  lease.  The  next  day  his 
clerk  brought  in  another  lease,  which,  on  examining  it,  I  was 
not  quite  satisfied  with,  and  I  took  it  to  Mr.  Imlay  to  have  it 
made  right.  I  expected  him  to  be  irritated  by  my  pertinacity 
in  the  matter,  and  he  remarked,  after  hearing  what  I  had  to 
say:  "  It  seems  to  me  you  are  pretty  particular,  Mr.  Hooker." 
"  Yes,  Mr.  Imlay,"  said  I,  "  I  am.  The  lease  is  an  important 
one.  I  may  occupy  the  rooms  twenty  years,  and  I  want 
it  made  exactly  right.  Suppose  you  let  me  draw  the  lease 
for  myself  and  show  it  to  you."  He  consented  to  this,  and  I 
soon  drew  the  lease  with  much  care  and  carried  it  to  him  to 
examine.  He  approved  my  draft  and  we  executed  the  lease 
in  duplicate.  Sometime  in  the  following  winter  he  came  to  my 
office  to  get  some  conveyances  drawn,  but  with  that  exception 
I  did  no  business  for  him,  and,  indeed,  rarely  saw  him,  till  the 
following  summer.  About  the  middle  of  that  summer  (1852), 
I  went  to  Newport,  R.  I.,  with  my  wife,  for  two  weeks,  leaving 
a  notice  on  my  office  door  of  the  time  of  my  return.  At 
this  time  Mr.  Hawley,  since  our  Senator  in  Congress,  was  my 
junior  partner,  but  he  was  also  away  on  his  summer  vacation. 
The  next  morning  after  my  return  Mr.  Imlay  called  at  my 
office  and  told  me  that  he  had  some  very  important  business 
that  he  wished  to  put  into  my  hands.  He  said  that  Mr.  Toucey 
(afterwards  Attorney-General  at  Washington)  had  been  his 
counsel,  but  that  now  he  wished  me  to  be  so.  He  then  re- 
minded me  of  what  passed  between  us  about  my  lease,  and 
asked  me  if  I  thought  he  took  offense.  I  told  him  that  I 
thought  he  was  somewhat  irritated  by  my  particularity  in  the 
matter.  "  No,"  said  he,  "  I  was 'not.  So  far  from  it  I  said  to 
myself,  there  is  just  the  man  to  do  business  for  me,"  and  he 
said  that  he  had  waited  very  impatiently  for  two  or  three  days 


MY  BICYCLE  ACCIDENT.  22$ 

for  me  to  get  back  from  Newport  rather  than  have  any  one 
else  do  the  business.  He  then  told  me  of  his  great  pecuniary 
embarrassment,  and  that  he  had  decided  to  make  an  assign- 
ment for  the  benefit  of  his  creditors;  and  on  talking  over  the 
persons  who  were  proper  for  assignees,  he  settled  on  Mr. 
George  Beach,  president  of  the  Phoenix  Bank,  and  myself. 
There  was  a  relative  in  New  York  whom  he  decided  to  put  on 
with  us,  but  he  was  not  willing  to  take  the  position  unless  all 
the  work  could  be  done  by  Mr.  Beach  and  myself.  The 
amount  of  work  brought  upon  the  assignees  was  very  great 
and  lasted  for  several  years.  Mr.  Beach  took  entire  charge  of 
the  account  keeping  and  of  the  handling  of  all  moneys.  I  took 
charge  of  all  the  law  business  and  drawing  of  papers,  while  we 
both  had  frequent  consultations  with  Mr.  Imlay  and  with  each 
other.  What  I  had  to  do  in  court  and  in  my  office  occupied 
a  great  part  of  my  time,  and  would  of  itself  have  constituted  a 
very  respectable  professional  business  for  the  time.  The  era 
of  great  fees,  of  what  I  may  call  unconscionable  fees,  had  not 
then  reached  Hartford.  I  will  only  add  that  Mr.  Imlay  after- 
wards made  me  one  of  his  executors,  and  on  his  death,  in  1858, 
I  had  his  complicated  estate  to  settle.  The  estate  paid  all  its 
debts,  but  very  little  was  left  for  his  children,  who,  unfortu- 
nately, had  been  brought  up  in  the  expectation  of  a  consider- 
able inheritance,  and  with  very  little  idea  of  self-dependence. 


MY  BICYCLE  ACCIDENT. 

In  September,  1895,  I  was  run  over  by  a  bicycle,  and  with 
a  broken  hip  kept  on  my  bed  for  eight  weeks,  and  for  several 
weeks  more  got  about  only  on  crutches.  It  is  a  marvel  that, 
in  my  eightieth  year,  I  could  sustain  such  an  injury  and  ever 
get  about  again  without  crutches.  I  have,  however,  entirely 
recovered  and  take  long  tramps,  of  which  I  am  very  fond,  with- 
out any  difficulty.  The  young  man  who  ran  over  me  was  one 
of  our  best  young  men,  and  was  distressed  over  the  injury  he 
had  clone  me.  He  stopped  to  help  me,  and  desired  to  watch 
all  night  with  me,  besides  frequently  calling  to  see  me,  and 
finally,  though  he  had  but  a  trifle  of  property  and  a  small  salary 
for  clerical  work  in  one  of  our  manufacturing  companies,  he 


226  REMINISCENCES. 

insisted  on  paying  the  special  expenses  which  my  condition 
made  necessary.  Soon  after  I  began  to  get  about  I  sent  the 
following  article,  giving  the  particulars  of  the  accident  and 
some  observations  on  the  general  subject,  to  one  of  our  city 
papers : 

As  most  of  my  city  friends  know,  I  was  run  over  by  a  bicycle 
some  time  ago  and  very  badly  hurt.  It  was  eleven  weeks  ago. 
For  eight  weeks  I  lay  upon  my  bed  ;  and  I  have  since  walked 
with  crutches,  with  a  fair  prospect  of  complete  recovery  in  a  few 
weeks.  I  think,  therefore,  that  in  what  I  may  say  about  bicycle 
accidents  I  may  be  regarded  as  looking  at  the  matter  from  a 
practical  point  of  view,  and  perhaps  as  speaking  with  some  au- 
thority as  an  expert. 

The  young  man  who  ran  over  me  (of  whose  personal  charac- 
ter and  attentiveness  to  me  since  the  accident  I  cannot  speak  too 
highly)  was  coming  up  Laurel  street  at  a  high  rate  of  speed  on 
the  aoth  of  last  September  at  twenty  minutes  after  six  in  the 
evening.  It  was  getting  dusky,  but  persons  could  easily  be  seen 
a  few  rods  off.  Laurel  street  crosses  Farmington  avenue,  our 
great  western  thoroughfare,  which  then  must  have  had  many 
persons  walking  upon  it  as  I  was.  The  young  man's  first  mis- 
take was  in  thinking  that  he  could  safely  and  justifiably  keep  on 
across  the  avenue  at  his  high  rate  of  speed,  and  pass  on  up  Lau- 
rel street.  When  he  reached  the  avenue  he  rang  his  bell.  I  was 
just  crossing  Laurel  street  on  the  other  side  of  the  avenue  and 
did  not  hear  the  bell  or  get  any  intimation  of  his  approach.  If 
he  allowed  himself  to  consider  the  tinkling  of  his  bell  as  putting 
on  pedestrians  any  obligation  to  take  notice  and  keep  out  of  his 
way,  or  any  warrant  for  relaxing  at  all  his  vigilance,  this  was  his 
second  mistake,  and  a  very  great  one.  I  will  say  more  of  this 
further  on.  When  he  reached  the  track  of  the  electric  road  he 
saw  me  just  a  little  way  on  the  Laurel  street  crossing.  Here  he 
thought  that  by  pressing  a  little  he  could  pass  ahead  of  me. 
This  was  his  third  and  most  disastrous  mistake.  He  should  with- 
out hesitation  have  slacked  up  and  gone  behind  me.  I  generally 
walk  with  a  quick  step,  and  at  this  time  was  hurrying  a  little  be- 
cause I  was  late  in  getting  home.  He  did  not  allow  for  this,  and 
the  consequence  was  that  his  large  wheel  struck  me  with  terrible 
force.  I  was  thrown  with  great  violence  upon  the  stone  cross- 
ing, the  wheel  and  its  rider  going  down  with  me.  No  person 
crushed  to  a  quick  death  was  ever  more  suddenly  and  incompre- 


MY  BICYCLE  ACCIDENT.  22/ 

hensibly  overwhelmed  and  seemingly  extinguished  than  I  was. 
I  did  not  know  whether  it  was  an  explosion  of  dynamite  or  the 
last  convulsion  of  nature.  I  only  knew  that  I  was  crushed  by 
something. 

I  go  into  these  details  because  the  case  presents  so  many  ele- 
ments of  an  ordinary  "bicycle  accident."  I  do  not  care  to  con- 
sider any  of  them  except  the  ringing  of  the  bell.  A  short  time 
after  I  was  hurt  an  old  gentleman  on  Pearl  street  was  crossing  a 
side  street  on  the  walk  when  a  wheelman,  going  with  great  ra- 
pidity on  Pearl  street,  turned  into  the  side  street,  and  rang  his 
bell  as  he  did  so  to  warn  the  old  gentleman  of  his  approach. 
This  wheelman  was  also  one  of  our  best  young  men.  The  old 
gentleman,  hearing  the  bell,  stopped  and  looked  about  him  to 
see  where  the  wheelman  was.  The  latter  had  not  expected  him 
to  stop  and  in  consequence  of  his  doing  so  struck  him  with  much 
force,  knocking  him  down  and  injuring  him  seriously.  The  news- 
paper paragraph  which  told  of  the  incident  stated  that,  as  the 
wheelman  had  not  expected  the  old  gentleman  to  stop,  the  by- 
standers thought  he  was  not  in  fault. 

It  is  evident  from  this  case,  and  perhaps  from  my  own,  that 
there  is  a  prevailing  idea  among  wheelmen  that  whenever  they 
have  rung  a  bell  a  part  of  the  responsibility  for  his  safety  passes 
to  the  pedestrian,  and  that  it  is  in  large  part  his  fault  if  he  gets 
run  over.  What  can  put  this  case  more  strongly  than  the  Pearl 
street  incident  ?  There  the  old  gentleman  heard  the  bell,  making 
it,  so  far  as  that  goes,  a  clear  case  for  the  wheelman.  But  he 
stopped  to  look  about  when  he  heard  it,  and  here  he  made  a  fatal 
error.  But  who  would  not  naturally  stop  and  look  about  ?  And 
how  would  it  have  been  if  the  old  gentleman  had  been  deaf  and 
had  not  heard  the  bell  ?  The  bell  is  rung  to  be  heard,  and  yet  it 
was  his  hearing  it  that  doubled  his  danger.  How  would  it  be  in 
the  case  of  children  ?  How  in  the  case  of  a  timid  woman  ? 

There  is  no  rule  that  can  be  properly  adopted  but  that  which 
puts  on  the  wheelman  the  absolute  responsibility  for  his  move- 
ments, without  the  slightest  abatement  of  his  vigilance  after  he 
has  rung  his  bell.  The  sidewalk  belongs  to  the  pedestrian,  except 
at  the  street  crossings,  where  he  shares  his  right  with  the  passing 
vehicles,  which,  however,  have  no  right  to  pass  at  a  rate  of  speed 
which  endangers  pedestrians.  Wheelmen  have  no  more  right 
than  they  to  pass  these  crossings  at  a  dangerous  rate  of  speed, 
especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  they  move  so  noiselessly  as  not 
to  be  observed  so  easily  as  an  ordinary  carriage  or  wagon.  What 


228  REMINISCENCES. 

then  is  to  be  the  rule  with  regard  to  their  speed  in  the  streets  of 
a  city  ?  It  is  that"  they  shall  not  move  at  a  rate  which  will  not 
leave  them  at  every  moment  in  entire  control  of  their  wheels,  so 
that  they  could  instantly  turn  them  or  alight  from  them.  It  does 
not  need  a  city  ordinance  to  require  this.  The  law  is  ample  with- 
out any  city  action.  Any  greater  rapidity  of  motion  would  be  a 
want  of  care,  fbr  which  the  law  would  hold  the  wheelman  both 
civilly  and  criminally  responsible.  If  I  had  been  killed  by  my 
wheelman,  as  1  might  easily  have  been,  there  can  be  no  question 
but  that  he  could  have  been  held  for  the  crime  of  manslaughter, 
and  fined  and  imprisoned  for  it. 


ANARCHY  AND  ITS  PHILOSOPHY. 

In  the  bitter  controversy  between  laborers  and  employers 
my  sympathies  have  been  with  the  laboring  class,  who,  I  think, 
do  not  get  a  fair  share  of  the  product  of  their  labor.  I  have 
spoken  and  written  on  their  side,  asserting  their  right  to  strike 
where  they  had  any  just  cause  of  complaint,  and  expressing  my 
greater  apprehension  from  organized  capital  than  from  organ- 
ized labor.  I  have  never,  however,  approved,  or  even  regarded 
with  patience,  the  violence  of  strikers  in  preventing  other  needy 
and  willing  workmen  from  taking  the  places  they  had  vacated, 
and  I  regarded  with  abhorrence  the  dastardly  and  murderous 
conduct  of  the  anarchists  in  Chicago,  who  threw  bombs  among 
the  policemen  who  were  endeavoring  to  hold  their  violence  in 
check.  A  number  of  them  were  convicted  (as  their  friends 
claimed,  on  indecisive  evidence)  and  were  executed.  This  was 
in  1887.  A  few  days  later  I  sent  the  following  communication, 
over  my  signature,  to  one  of  our  city  papers.  I  insert  it  here 
as  containing  some  ideas  that  I  think  very  important,  and 
which  I  am  glad  to  leave  in  permanent  form  behind  me. 

Anarchy  has  no  excuse  for  its  existence  in  a  country  like  this. 
It  should  be  dealt  with,  in  its  outbreaks,  with  a  strong  and  unspar- 
ing hand.  It  has,  however,  its  philosophy,  or  what  it  claims  to  be 
such.  The  men  who  have  just  suffered  for  the  most  atrocious  of 
murders  were  not  men  thirsting  for  blood  or  spoil,  but  were  acting 
upon  an  idea  which  seemed  to  their  ill-reasoning  minds  fundamen- 
tal to  the  welfare  of  the  laboring  class.  Let  us  see,  now,  just 
what  that  idea  is. 


ANARCHY  AND  ITS  PHILOSOPHY. 


229 


This  idea  (I  cannot  call  it  a  principle)  is  based  upon  a  social 
principle  that  has  come  to  be,  within  more  or  less  of  limitation,  a 
very  generally  accepted  one.  It  is  expressed  in  the  familiar 
maxim  that  that  government  is  the  best  which  governs  the  least. 
It  is  the  rule  that  government  should  do  nothing,  either  helpful  or 
compulsory,  that  can  safely  be  left  to  the  voluntary  action  of  the 
citizen.  It  finds  an  apt  illustration  in  the  change  of  policy  in  the 
New  England  states  with  regard  to  church  membership  and 
church  attendance.  Every  person  was  at  first  required  to  attend 
church,  and  later  to  belong  to  some  religious  society  ;  but  finally 
these  laws  were  repealed  and  the  whole  matter  left  to  every  man's 
voluntary  action.  An  eminent  clergyman  of  that  time  says,  in  a 
letter  written  forty  years  later,  that  he  fought  with  all  his  might 
against  a  change  which  was  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  which 
God  ever  sent  to  the  churches.  Some  able  articles  have  been 
written  against  the  policy  of  requiring  oaths,  official  or  in  courts 
of  law,  the  idea  being  that  men  will  be  more  likely  to  tell  the 
truth  under  an  obligation  to  themselves  and  where  put  upon  their 
honor,  than  where  the  fear  of  the  law  is  substituted  for  conscience. 
The  same  rule  is  applied  to  the  laws  of  trade,  a  term  which  is  used 
to  express  a  natural  law  which  trade  finds  for  itself.  Secretary 
Lamar  expressed  very  well  the  free-trade  side  of  this  question,  in 
a  recent  speech"  in  New  York,  in  which  he  said  that  "artificial 
and  legislative  restraints  are  as  ruinous  to  commerce  as  they  have 
ever  proved  to  be  fatal  to  human  thought  and  human  freedom." 
There  is  a  philosophy  here  worthy  of  respect  and  study. 

Now  this  principle  the  anarchists,  partly  in  a  most  visionary 
way,  and  partly  recklessly  and  dishonestly,  have  pushed  to  a  per- 
nicious extreme.  They  seem  to  have  the  idea  that  if  society  were 
no  longer  compacted  by  legal  pressure  it  would  still  cohere  and 
prosper.  They  are  not  seeking  to  escape  the  restraints  of  law 
that  they  may  have  a  free  course  of  robbery  and  murder.  They 
think,  or  try  to  think,  that  men  not  crushed  by  bad  laws,  but  left 
to  themselves,  would  get  a  fairer  share  of  the  good  things  of  life, 
and  so  would  be  more  contented  and  therefore  would  not  wish  to 
rob  others  ;  that  there  would  be  no  men  so  much  above  the  mass 
as  to  have  the  power  to  oppress  them  ;  that  men  would  be  hap- 
pier, and  therefore  full  of  good  temper  and  good  will,  and  that 
self-restraint  on  the  one  hand  and  public  spirit  on  the  other  would 
take  the  place  of  the  restraints  and  exactions  of  the  law.  Now 
let  us  see  exactly  what  are  those  essential  principles  of  social  or- 
ganization that  a  society  built  up  in  the  most  voluntary  way  would 


230  REMINISCENCES. 

necessarily  adopt,  and  thus  let  us  see  whether  it  is  not  an  utter 
fallacy  that  such  a  society  as  the  anarchists  are  advocating  and 
working  for  could  exist. 

1.  It  would  be  absolutely  necessary  that  there  should  be  a 
police  force,  to  protect  persons  and  property.    We  might  concede 
all  that  the  anarchists  claim  with  regard  to  the  effect  of  this  equal 
opportunity  for  all  men  in  making  them  unselfish  and  kind  and 
just,  and  yet,  knowing  what  we  do  of  human  nature,  it  is  abso- 
lutely certain  that  there  would  be  some  bad  men  in  the  commu- 
nity.   There  would  be  beastly  passions  in  search  of  prey,  rapacity 
that  would  rob,  craft  that  would  cheat,  and  violent  temper  that 
would  strike.    No  matter  how  few  these  bad  men  might  be.    If 
there  were  only  ten  in  a  city  they  would  make  a  considerable 
police  force  necessary.    It  could  not  be  known  in  what  part  of  the 
city  they  would  lurk  or  ravage,  and  therefore  all  the  city  would 
have  to  be  patrolled.    Thus  at  the  very  outset,  by  the  most  abso- 
lute necessity,  the  new  society  of  the  anarchists  would  be  estab- 
lishing for  its  protection  a  police  force,  the  very  name  of  which  is 
hateful  to  them. 

2.  The  mere  possession  of  personal  and  property  rights  would 
require  a  system  of  laws  for  their  protection.    It  would  be  neces- 
sary that  rights  be  defined.    If  conveyances  are  made,  there  must 
be  certain  formalities  of  execution  and  registration.     There  must 
be  a  record  of  wills  and  an  administration  of  estates.    There  must 
be  a  record  of  marriages,  even  under  the  loosest  marriage  con- 
tracts, else  neither  titles  nor  descents  could  be  traced.     All  this 
would  require  chosen  legislators  to  make  the  laws,  and  courts  to 
expound  and  apply  them,  and  officers  to  put  them  in   execution. 
There  would  have,  too,  to  be  a  code  of  criminal  law.     Then  there 
would  grow  up  a  system  of  civil  and  criminal  procedure,  which 
would  have  to  be  as  complete  for  a  simple  state  of  society  as  for  a 
more  complex  and  extended  one.    Then  we  should  have,  what 
the  anarchists  detest,  courts  of  law,   administering  what  they 
equally  hate,  a  system  of  law. 

3.  This  civil  system  would  necessarily  involve  a  large  outlay, 
which  must  be  met  by  taxes.    The  less  there  would  be  for  courts 
and  policemen  to  do,  the  less  might  be  the  cost  of  maintaining 
them,  but  it  would  in  any  event  be  considerable.    This  cost  must 
in  some  way  be  drawn  from  the  community.  If  there  were  a  com- 
munity of  property,  and  the  cost  were  taken  from  the  common 
fund,  it  would  not  alter  the  case,  being  the  same  thing  in  effect. 


ANARCHY  AND  ITS  PHILOSOPHY.  231 

We  have  given  here  only  the  absolute  essentials  of  the  simplest 
social  order,  omitting  everything  that  a  more  advanced  and  com- 
plex state  of  society  would  demand  and  add.  The  necessity  of 
these  makes  it  evident  that  anarchy,  which  is  the  absence  from 
society  of  all  legal  power  to  compel  or  restrain,  cannot  co-exist 
with  society  itself,  and  that  the  conception  of  any  kind  of  social 
order  built  upon  anarchy  is  as  wild  as  any  conception  that  ever 
found  expression  in  an  insane  asylum. 

There  are,  no  doubt,  great  evils  that  have  attached  themselves 
to  our  social  system,  like  barnacles  to  a  ship.  It  is  not  strange 
that  men  who  find  themselves  hedged  in  by  hard  conditions  or 
overborne  in  the  struggle  of  life  should  feel  exasperated  at  the 
surfeiting  success  of  other  men,  no  better  than  they,  who  have 
been  able  to  take  advantage  of  or  to  create  circumstances  which 
have  put  them  in  a  condition  not  merely  of  luxury,  but,  what  is 
specially  exasperating,  of  power  —  power  in  controlling  legisla- 
tion and  trade,  a  power  unscrupulously  and  often  oppressively 
used,  and  which  too  often  and  too  successfully  sets  at  defiance 
the  law  and  its  tribunals.  They  see  such  men  robbing  their  fel- 
low-men and  escaping  all  just  retribution.  There  is,  in  fact,  some- 
thing very  close  to  anarchy  at  the  upper  end  of  the  line.  It  is  no 
wonder,  then,  that  these  beleaguered  men  look  out  from  their 
dens  with  the  ferocity  of  tigers.  They  deserve  wide  sympathy, 
and  they  have  it.  Thousands  of  our  best  men  and  women  are  ex- 
pending thought  and  feeling  and  effort  in  their  behalf,  and  would 
join  with  them  in  every  legitimate  and  reasonable  effort  to  right 
these  wrongs  ;  but  when  they  resort  to  arson  and  murder,  they 
are  both  repelling  sympathy  and  frustrating  the  best  efforts  for 
reform. 

I  have  watched  with  much  interest  the  progress  of  socialism  in 
Europe.  The  socialists,  where  standing  upon  their  true  princi- 
ples, are  at  a  vital  point  the  antagonists  of  the  anarchists.  Karl 
Marx,  their  greatest  thinker,  and  until  his  death  their  leader,  laid 
it  down  as  a  fundamental  principle  of  socialism  that  it  was  to 
reach  its  ends  by  evolution  and  not  by  revolution.  It  differs  also 
from  anarchy  in  this,  that  it  would  add  to  the  powers  and  func- 
tions of  government,  while  anarchy  would  overthrow  the  whole. 
There  is  nothing  in  common  between  them  but  the  sense  of  a 
wrong  done  to  the  laboring  class  by  the  present  condition  of 
society.  While  there  seems  to  me  much  that  is  impracticable  in 
the  theories  of  the  socialists,  yet  their  discussions  of  social  prob- 
lems are  not  only  harmless,  but  useful  as  educating  them  and  en- 


232  REMINISCENCES. 

couraging  patience  and  hope.  There  is  a  great  advantage  in  hold- 
ing up  before  a  people  a  high,  even  if  it  be  an  unattainable,  ideal. 
The  church  has  for  ages  been  quickened  and  elevated  by  its  dream 
of  a  Millennium,  and  society  owes  a  debt  to  those  who,  in  the 
words  of  scripture,  "dream  dreams."  It  all  helps  to  lift  human 
life  in  some  measure  out  of  its  hard  materialistic  conditions.  The 
socialists  in  this  country  have,  however,  been  so  confounded  with 
the  anarchists  in  the  public  opinion  as  to  have  met  a  general  con- 
demnation with  them,  and  probably  many  among  them  would 
hardly  know  how  to  classify  themselves.  The  public  has  done 
them  a  wrong  and  itself  an  injury  in  not  listening  with  some  pa- 
tience to  what  they  have  had  to  say,  and  availing  itself  of  their 
readiness  to  antagonize  disorder  and  anarchy. 

It  has  been  my  object  thus  far  to  simply  state  the  case,  and  not 
to  discuss  remedies.  To  do  the  latter  would  require  more  space 
than  I  can  now  ask.  But  I  will  say  briefly  —  (i)  That  the  one 
remedy  for  all  political  evils  in  this  free  country,  and  a  remedy 
open  to  all  laboring  men,  is  by  the  ballot.  Its  patient,  intelligent, 
and  concerted  use  by  men  who  think  they  are  disadvantaged  by 
political  conditions,  will,  if  that  disadvantage  is  positive  and  con- 
siderable, surely  in  time  remedy  the  evil.  (2)  But  the  great  rem- 
edy for  what  seem  to  laboring  men  the  disadvantages  of  their  lot 
is  to  be  found  in  the  personal  improvement  of  each  one's  self,  and 
not  in  any  political  or  class  movement.  It  is  a  noticeable  fact  that 
men  who,  like  Herr  Most,  are  loudest  in  their  talk  about  the  wrong 
done  to  laboring  men,  are  enriching  themselves  out  of  their  earn- 
ings by  selling  them  all  the  liquor  they  can  be  induced  to  drink.  I 
know  nothing  more  encouraging  than  the  determined  action  of  a 
large  organization  of  the  labor  element  in  favor  of  temperance. 
There  is  not  a  man,  however  humble  in  life,  who,  if  he  will  be 
temperate,  virtuous,  and  industrious,  cannot,  with  ordinary  health, 
secure  to  himself  and  his  family  reasonable  comforts.  It  is  sus- 
ceptible of  demonstration  by  statistics  that  the  money  spent  by 
laboring  men  for  liquor  and  tobacco  would,  if  expended  for  their 
families,  or  put  aside  for  future  contingencies,  make  want  practi- 
cally unknown.  All  political  remedies  put  together  will  not  com- 
pare with  this. 

TAXATION. 

The  subject  of  a  system  of  taxation  that  shall  be  just  and 
equal  in  its  theory,  and  effective  in  its  operation,  is  one  of  great 


TAXATION.  233 

difficulty.  Nothing  is  more  unacceptable  to  our  taxpayers  than 
a  graded  income  tax,  yet  no  tax  can  be  more  just,  and  few  taxes 
arouse  greater  complaint  than  a  legacy  tax,  which  seems  to  me, 
with  certain  restrictions  and  limitations,  a  very  just  one.  The 
English  inheritance  tax  goes  much  further  than  ours,  as  it  taxes 
all  inheritances,  while  that  of  my  own  state,  and  I  think  those 
of  other  states,  tax  only  bequests  that  fall  outside  of  the  line 
of  descent.  No  estate  would  be  of  much  value  if  there  were  not 
a  probate  court  to  settle  it  and  a  system  of  laws  to  determine 
its  settlement,  to  say  nothing  of  the  courts  of  law  which  aid  the 
administrator  in  the  collection  of  its  debts  and  the  securing  of 
its  just  rights  where  disputed.  In  the  evasion  by  large  property 
owners  of  their  just  taxes,  and  the  unequal  burden  thus  thrown 
upon  the  small  holdings  of  poorer  men,  as  well  as  upon  all 
honest  taxpayers,  I  have  come  to  think  favorably  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  laying  but  one  tax,  and  that  on  real  estate,  the  burden 
becoming  justly  distributed  over  the  entire  community  in  the 
rents  they  pay  and  in  the  cost  of  the  products  of  the  land, 
while  the  landowner  would  be  largely  relieved  by  the  exemp- 
tion of  his  personal  property,  and  there  would  be  no  room  for 
the  evasions  that  make  the  burden  of  taxation  fall  so  unequally, 
as  well  as  add  seriously  to  the  cost  of  searching  for  property 
and  of  collecting  the  taxes.  An  ideal  system  would  be  that  of 
the  ownership  of  all  land  by  the  state,  and  the  collection  of 
taxes  by  the  rents  paid  for  it.  But  while  this  would  be  an  easy 
thing  to  do  in  a  case  where  society  was  starting  new  and  in- 
dividuals had  acquired  no  separate  rights  in  land,  it  seems  im- 
possible to  devise  any  mode  of  substituting  such  state  owner- 
ship for  that  of  individuals  where  the  rights  of  the  latter  have 
been  for  centuries  recognized  and  established.  The  time  may, 
however,  come  when  such  state  ownership  will  be  considered 
so  essential  to  the  public  welfare,  and  so  just  in  itself,  that  a 
disruptive  and  arbitrary  transition,  with  some  attempt  to  do 
justice  to  the  individual  owner,  may  be  regarded  as  a  smaller 
evil  than  the  continuance  of  the  inequitable  system  that  has 
long  sucked,  like  a  vampire,  the  life  blood  of  society.  At  my 
advanced  age  I  do  not  expect  to  see  anything  better  than  a 
patching  up  of  our  present  system,  by  such  occasional  legisla- 
tion as  will  help  us  to  improve  it. 

16 


234  REMINISCENCES. 

There  has  been  a  great  outcry  against  the  taxing  of  the  evi- 
dences of  debt,  as  representing  only  an  obligation  of  the  debtor 
to  pay,  and  especially  where  the  debtor  is  secured  by  the 
mortgage  of  property  which  itself  pays  a  tax,  as  where  a  debt 
is  held  and  taxed  in  an  eastern  state  when  secured  by  prop- 
erty situated  and  taxed  in  a  western  state.  This  is  called 
by  its  opponents  "  double  taxation,"  a  phrase  which  they  re- 
gard as  sufficient  to  condemn  it.  A  few  years  ago  I  sent  to 
one  of  our  city  papers  the  following  article  on  this  subject, 
the  reasoning  of  which  I  still  regard  as  sound  and  as  worthy 
of  serious  consideration.  I  will  add  that  in  my  youth  there 
was  a  law  in  this  state  making  a  man's  "  faculty  "  the  subject 
of  taxation  —  that  is,  the  particular  power  of  making  money 
which  a  man's  occupation  gave  him.  It  was  repealed  more, 
I  think,  than  fifty  years  ago.  There  would  be  a  serious  dif- 
ficulty in  making  a  just  valuation  of  this  faculty,  but  there 
was  a  large  element  of  justice  in  it.  Some  things  that  I  say  in 
the  article  which  I  append  bear  upon  this  point. 

The  matter  of  taxing  notes  and  other  evidences  of  debt  is  a 
perplexing  one.  The  writer  is  not  prepared  to  show  any  clear 
way  out  of  the  perplexity.  But  it  will  help  us  if  we  strip  the 
question  of  some  of  the  irrelevant  matter  that  obscures  it,  and  see 
exactly  what  it  is. 

The  common  mode  of  outcry  against  the  taxation  of  such 
property  is  to  call  it  "  double  taxation."  The  matter  of  double 
taxation  does  not,  I  conceive,  touch  the  real  question.  The 
Courant  quoted  approvingly  a  terse  illustration  of  what  it  con- 
ceived to  be  double  taxation  from  one  of  the  lawyers  who  dis- 
cussed the  question  before  the  committee,  as  follows  :  "  I  sell  a 
mule  to  my  neighbor  for  $40,  and  he  gives  me  his  note  for  that 
amount.  Here  is  only  one  mule  ;  why  should  the  $40  be  twice 
taxed  ? "  This  illustration  shows  its  own  fallacy.  Suppose  the 
mule  died,  then  there  would  be  no  mule  at  all,  and  yet  the  ques- 
tion would  remain  exactly  as  before,  shall  my  forty-dollar  note  be 
taxed  ?  It  is  perfectly  good,  and  constitutes  a  part  of  my  estate. 
The  question  in  every  aspect  of  it  is  simply  whether  notes  are  a 
proper  subject  for  taxation.  The  fact  that  there  is  certain  property 
in  which  the  borrowed  money  was  invested,  or  certain  property 
mortgaged  to  secure  the  note,  is.  the  mere  accident  of  the  case. 
In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  it  would  be  impossible  to  trace  the 


TAXATION. 


235 


investment  of  the  money  borrowed.  It  may  have  been  lent  to 
some  person  who  expended  it  in  paying  his  old  debts  ;  it  may  have 
been  loaned  on  merely  personal  security  ;  it  may  have  paid  for  a 
house  that  has  been  burned  ;  all  these  are  mere  accidents. 

The  fallacy  in  the  double  taxation  argument  grows  out  of  the 
fallacy  of  considering  tangible  property  as  the  thing  specially  pro- 
tected by  the  law,  and,  therefore,  that  which  should  alone  be 
charged  with  the  expenses  of  supporting  the  government.  Let 
me  illustrate.  Here  is  a  hard-working  mechanic  who  owns  the 
house  he  lives  in,  worth  $5,000,  and  that  is  all  he  has.  A  fellow 
townsman  has  $100,000  money  at  interest,  but  owns  no  tangible 
property.  The  mechanic  pays  a  full  tax  on  his  house,  his  fellow 
townsman  pays  no  tax  whatever.  No  ingenuity  of  argument  can 
make  this  anything  else  than  a  seeming  injustice  ;  no  legislation 
anything  else  but  a  real  one.  It  is  especially  hard  on  the  me- 
chanic because  he  has  to  pay  a  higher  tax  in  consequence  of  the 
other  paying  none,  while  the  latter  could  pay  his  large  tax,  if  It 
were  laid,  much  more  easily  than  the  mechanic  his  small  one. 
Now  as  to  the  protection  which  the  richer  man  receives  ;  there  is 
an  expensive  system  of  police  which  protects  the  person  of  the 
rich  man,  a  protection  really  more  important  to  him  than  that  of 
the  poor  man  because  there  are  many  more  chances  that  a  man 
supposed  to  have  a  pocket  full  of  money  will  be  knocked  down  in 
the  night  and  robbed.  The  rich  man's  office,  and  house  if  he  has 
one,  are  much  more  likely  to  be  broken  into  by  burglars  than  the 
poor  man's  house,  so  that  here  he  gets  more  protection  from  the 
police.  Further,  it  is  a  great  benefit  to  him  that  all  his  many 
debtors  are  protected  by  the  law  in  their  persons,  their  property, 
and  business,  and  a  great  benefit  to  him,  if  his  debtors  do  not  pay, 
that  he  has  the  whole  system  of  legal  administration  to  apply  for 
the  collection  of  his  debts.  If  any  of  his  debtors  die,  there  is  a 
careful  administration  for  the  benefit  of  creditors  of  the  property 
which  he  leaves,  in  the  probate  court.  Now  transplant  this  man 
with  his  $100,000  of  notes  into  the  center  of  Africa  and  suppose 
his  debtors  to  be  members  of  a  tribe  of  savages.  What  is  his  own 
life  worth  to  begin  with  ?  And  as  to  his  debtors,  half  of  them 
might  be  killed  in  some  savage  fight  with  no  probate  court  to  set- 
tle their  estates  ;  and  if  he  undertook  to  collect  what  the  other  half 
owed  him,  there  not  only  would  be  no  courts  to  help  him,  but  the 
chance  would  be  that  they  would  roast  him  for  a  barbecue.  Here 
all  that  makes  his  $100,000  notes  worth  that  sum  in  this  country 
and  worth  nothing  in  the  savage  one,  is  that  expensive  machinery 


236  REMINISCENCES. 

of  society  for  which  he  is  paying  nothing  because  his  notes  are 
not  tangible  property. 

Let  me  make  another  illustration.  A  man  has  two  sons  and  a 
farm  worth  $5,000  and  $5,000  in  money.  One  son  takes  the  farm, 
the  other  desires  to  have  his  $5,000  put  into  a  complete  education 
for  the  bar.  He  enters  upon  the  practice  of  law  with  five  times 
the  earning  capacity  of  his  brother  on  the  farm  ;  yet  his  brother 
pays  the  full  tax  on  his  farm  and  he  pays  none.  Well,  now  suppose 
him  to  turn  out  to  be  a  very  brilliant  man  —  another  Richard  Hub- 
bard  perhaps  —  and  after  a  few  years  to  be  earning  $20,000  a  year, 
all  of  which  (beyond  his  living)  he  puts  out  at  interest.  The  farmer 
keeps  on  paying  his  full  tax.  The  brilliant  and  successful  brother 
pays  nothing.  Now  look  at  what  protection  this  lawyer  gets.  He 
gets  first  the  protection  of  his  person,  greatly  endangered  by  the 
fact  that  he  is  supposed  every  night  to  be  carrying  home  a  hun- 
dred dollar  fee  in  his  pocket.  Again,  what  brings  to  him  all  that 
great  business  ?  The  fact  that  there  are  organized  courts  where 
civil  rights  can  be  enforced  —  a  most  expensive  part  of  our  social 
machinery.  Who  would  go  to  him  for  advice  as  to  his  rights  if 
there  were  no  way  to  enforce  those  rights  ?  Who  would  go  to  him 
to  draw  a  will  if  there  were  no  probate  court  to  administer 
estates?  What  value  would  be  his  great  forensic  abilities  if  there 
were  no  courts  in  which  to  use  them  ?  What  would  be  the  value 
of  all  his  investments  in  notes  if  he  had  no  legal  means  of  collect- 
ing them  ?  Put  him  down  in  that  savage  country  where  we  sent 
the  other  rich  man,  and  with  all  his  abilities  he  couldn't  earn  a 
dollar.  Is  it  so  then  that  the  whole  protection  of  government  ex- 
pends itself  upon  tangible  property?  Is  it  so  that  nothing  but 
tangible  property  should  respond  to  the  call  of  government  for 
the  means  of  maintenance  ?  It  is  as  clear  as  day  that  this  ques- 
tion can  only  be  answered  in  the  negative. 

The  question  then  is  (and  the  whole  question,  so  far  as  theory 
goes),  whether  notes  and  other  evidences  of  debt  are  of  such  a 
nature  that  they  ought  to  be  taxed.  It  seems  to  me  there  can  be 
but  one  answer  to  this  question. 

But  there  remains  this  further  question  —  whether  such  a  tax 
can  be  enforced.  Here  is  the  sole  practical  question  in  the  case. 
The  law  making  notes  taxable  will  be  easily  evaded  —  a  constant 
temptation  to  perjury  —  and  the  result  will  be  a  great  inequality 
after  all.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  danger  of  perjury  should  not 
be  seriously  considered.  A  man  must  settle  that  with  his  own 
conscience  ;  he  will  find  chances  enough  to  perjure  himself  on  the 


JOHN  HOOKER  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA.  237 

witness  stand  and  in  other  ways  if  he  has  not  conscience  enough 
to  restrain  him.  I  would,  however,  add  a  few  provisions  to  the 
law  that  would  help  to  secure  its  enforcement.  I  would,  first,  add 
to  the  general  oath  now  taken  upon  each  assessment  list  (or  em- 
body in  it)  a  special  oath  as  to  the  notes  held  by  the  taxpayer. 
Second,  I  would  make  the  law  more  peremptory  in  requiring  as- 
sessors to  add  to  a  tax  list  whatever  amount  of  money  at  interest 
they  suppose  to  be  kept  back,  allowing  the  taxpayer  to  appear, 
and  upon  special  oath  and  examination  have  it  reduced.  Third, 
I  would  have  any  property  of  that  kind  kept  back  from  taxation, 
that  may  be  discovered  within  ten  years  (perhaps  by  the  disclos- 
ures of  a  man's  inventory  on  his  death)  subject  to  a  large  for- 
feiture, say  of  25  or  50  per  cent. 

JOHN  HOOKER  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

My  uncle,  John  Hooker,  who  was  a  leading  lawyer  in  South 
Carolina,  died  on  the  28th  of  July,  1815,  at  the  age  of  forty-one. 
I  was  born  a  few  months  later  and  was  named  after  him.  He 
was  a  brother  of  my  father,  about  ten  years  older  than  he,  and 
graduated  at  Yale  College  in  1796,  my  father  graduating  in 
1805.  He  went  to  Columbia,  in  South  Carolina,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-eight,  and  in  the  thirteen  years  that  he  lived  there  had 
risen  to  a  front  rank  at  the  bar  of  the  state.  He  married  in 
Columbia,  but  left  no  children.  Chancellor  DeSausure,  of 
South  Carolina,  one  of  the  greatest  jurists  that  the  country  has 
produced,  was  his  warm  friend,  and  wrote  the  epitaph  which 
appears  on  his  gravestone  in  the  churchyard  of  the  principal 
Presbyterian  church  in  Columbia.  It  is  as  follows :  — 

SACRED  TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  JOHN  HOOKER. 

He  was  a  native  of  Farmington,  and  graduate  of  Yale  College, 
in  the  State  of  Connecticut.  He  settled  in  South  Carolina  at  the 
age  of  twenty-eight  years. 

Possessed  of  an  acute  logical  mind  and  a  sound  judgment, 
guided  by  the  purest  integrity,  he  became  a  very  eminent  mem- 
ber of  the  bar  of  South  Carolina.  The  public  respected  him  for 
his  virtues ;  the  court  esteemed  him  for  his  talents  and  learning; 
his  brethren  loved  him  for  his  amenity  and  kindness.  In  private 
life  his  unassuming  deportment,  his  active  benevolence,  and  the 
purity  of  his  affections  endeared  him  to  a  large  circle  of  friends, 
but  above  all  to  the  beloved  partner  of  his  life  and  her  family. 

This  excellent  man  was  summoned  to  immortality  by  his 
Creator,  whom  he  humbly  adored,  on  the  28th  day  of  July,  1815, 
aged  41  years. 


238  REMINISCENCES. 

A  lady,  a  cousin  of  mine,  who  was  teaching  in  South  Caro- 
lina forty  years  ago,  told  me  that  she  met  Chancellor  DeSau- 
sure,  then  an  old  man,  at  a  party  one  evening,  and  that  he  came 
up  to  her  and  introduced  himself  and  said  that  he  learned  that 
she  was  a  niece  of  John  Hooker,  and  then  went  on  to  speak  of 
him  in  the  highest  terms,  and  told  her  of  their  great  friendship 
and  of  the  anguish  that  he  felt  over  his  early  death.  Mr. 
Hooker's  widow  came  north  the  spring  following  his  death 
and  spent  the  summer  of  1816  at  my  father's  house.  I  was 
born  in  April  of  that  year,  so  that  she  saw  much  of  me  as  a  baby. 
In  1872,  when  I  was  fifty-six  years  old,  I  saw  her  at  her  home 
in  Newberry,  South  Carolina.  She  had  not  seen  me  before 
since  I  was  a  baby.  She  had  married  a  Dr.  Glenn,  some  time 
after  my  uncle's  death,  who  owned  and  was  living  on  a  planta- 
tion in  Newberry.  He  had  since  died,  but  one  of  her  sons, 
a  married  man,  was  living  on  the  plantation.  The  war  had 
swept  away  much  of  the  wealth  of  the  South,  and  especially 
that  part  of  it  invested  in  slaves,  and  this  family  had  suffered 
with  the  rest.  There  was,  however,  a  pathetic  remnant  of  the 
old  plantation  life,  which  could  not  adapt  itself  to  the  new  con- 
ditions. I  wrote  Mrs.  Glenn,  from  Florida,  of  my  desire  to 
visit  her  on  my  way  home  and  had  received  from  her  a  most 
earnest  request  that  I  would  not  fail  to  do  so.  When  I  reached 
her  home  she  threw  her  arms  around  my  neck  and  cried.  I 
found  that  her  marriage  to  my  uncle  was  the  great  event  of 
her  life,  and  that  she  carried  in  her  heart  a  constant  remem- 
brance of  him.  She  could  not  talk  too  much  about  him.  She 
remembered  my  father,  also,  with  great  interest ;  and  I  stayed 
two  days  at  her  house,  spending  my  time  almost  wholly  with 
her,  but  looking  about  with  great  interest  upon  the  fresh  marks 
of  a  state  of  society  that  was  fast  passing  from  observation  and 
would  soon  be  a  matter  only  of  history. 

While  at  Columbia  I  was  introduced  to  a  middle-aged 
lawyer  as  Mr.  John  Hooker.  "  Why,"  said  he,  "  there  was  a 
very  distinguished  lawyer  of  that  name  who  lies  buried  in  the 
churchyard  close  by."  I  then  told  him  that  he  was  my  uncle 
and  that  I  was  named  for  him.  He  replied  that  he  had  never 
known  Mr.  Hooker,  as  he  died  before  he  was  born,  but  that  he 
had  left  a  great  memory  among  the  members  of  the  bar. 


JOHN  HOOKER  OF  SOUTH  CAROLINA.  239 

The  South  Carolina  State  Gazette  of  August  I,  1815,  says 
of  him : 

Mr.  Hooker  had  been  several  years  practicing  here  as  a  law- 
yer. He  already  ranked  among  the  first  of  his  profession  and 
was  rapidly  rising  to  still  higher  eminence,  and  there  is  no  doubt 
but  the  highest  honors  of  the  country  awaited  him.  Of  the 
utmost  benevolence  of  disposition  and  benignity  of  manners  it 
was  impossible  to  know  without  esteeming  and  loving  him. 
Active  and  indefatigable  where  he  could  be  useful  (and  no  one 
had  a  greater  capacity  for  usefulness),  he  injured  or  offended  no 
one.  His  virtues  were  of  that  sterling  unaffected  kind  that  give 
a  grace  and  value  to  life.  It  will  be  long  before  the  chasm  his 
death  has  made  in  our  society  can  be  filled  up.  The  solicitude  so 
strongly  expressed  for  him  during  his  last  illness,  by  almost  every 
individual  in  this  place,  was  an  evidence  of  the  universal  esteem 
and  affection  which  he  had  acquired. 


The  period  during  which  my  uncle  lived  in  South  Carolina, 
from  1802  to  1815,  was  one  in  which  the  public  conscience  was 
very  little  touched  with  regard  to  slavery,  and  yet  he  would 
never,  during  all  his  life  there,  own  a  slave. 

My  father,  immediately  after  his  graduation  in  1805,  went 
to  South  Carolina  to  study  law  in  his  brother's  office,  and  with 
the  intention  of  settling  there  as  a  lawyer,  in  partnership  with 
him.  About  a  year  later  he  was  invited  to  a  tutorship  in  the 
South  Carolina  University  and  carried  on  his  legal  studies  in 
connection  with  his  college  duties.  After  spending  about  a 
year  in  the  college  he  went  north  for  a  visit  home,  and  while 
there  was  invited  by  the  faculty  of  Yale  College  to  take  a  tutor- 
ship at  the  college.  At  the  end  of  two  years  there  he  settled 
at  Farmington,  in  this  state,  his  native  place,  his  parents  de- 
siring that  he  should  give  up  his  plans  for  a  professional  life 
and  live  upon  the  ancestral  farm,  taking  care  of  them  in  their 
old  age.  It  is  to  me  a  curious  matter  of  speculation  what  would 
have  become  of  me  if  he  had  settled  in  South  Carolina  and  prob- 
ably married  there.  Indeed,  it  is  a  curious  matter  of  specula- 
tion where  he  would  have  stood  in  the  fierce  conflict  that  grew 
up  between  freedom  and  slavery.  He  always  hated  slavery, 
and,  I  think,  could  never  have  become  a  defender  of  it.  At  a 


240  REMINISCENCES. 

dinner  at  Columbia,  while  he  was  residing  there,  at  which  sev- 
eral invited  guests  were  present,  he  gave  as  a  toast,  "  May  the 
time  come  when  there  will  not  be  a  slave  in  the  land."  No  one 
seemed  to  take  offense,  though  one  elderly  gentleman  replied 
that  he  hoped  he  should  be  under  the  turf  first. 

My  father  kept  a  minute  daily  journal  of  all  his  life,  from 
his  graduation  in  1805  to  about  1820.  At  the  time  of  his 
brother's  death  he  was  living  in  Farmington,  and  I  find  this 
entry  in  his  journal,  under  date  of  August  14,  1815  : 

Oh,  what  a  sea  of  sorrow  has  in  one  moment  overwhelmed 
me,  and  those  dear  aged  and  infirm  parents  !  The  mail  from  the 
South  arrived  this  afternoon,  and  our  friend  the  postmaster,  who 
is  always  feelingly  tender  towards  those  in  affliction  and  ready  to 
share  in  their  grief,  hastened  to  me  with  letters  conveying  to  us 
the  woful,  heartrending  intelligence  that  our  dearly  beloved  and 
affectionate  brother  John  is  no  more.  I  am  lost  in  astonishment. 
I  hardly  seem  to  know  if  I  am  awake.  I  almost  flatter  myself  it  is 
a  dream  ;  only  I  see  before  me  the  black-sealed  letters  and  hear 
the  half-suppressed  groans  of  others  and  observe  their  despond- 
ing looks  and  sighs  and  tears.  Oh,  most  merciful  God,  have  com- 
passion upon  us.  Mercifully  give  us  consolation  from  above. 
Sanctify  to  us  this  visitation  of  thy  Providence,  and  do  not  let  it 
be  in  vain. 

The  casual  reader  will  probably  find  little  in  this  account 
of  my  uncle  to  interest  him,  but  I  have  felt  that  it  was  due  to 
his  memory  that  in  this  retrospect  of  one  who  entered  the  world 
just  as  he  left  it  and  succeeded  to  his  name,  a  few  words  should 
be  written,  both  as  a  testimonial  of  my  profound  and  affec- 
tionate regard  for  his  memory  and  as  a  means  of  preserving 
some  brief  record  of  his  short  but  earnest  life.  He  had  not 
reached  that  age  when  his  name,  whatever  his  promise,  could 
have  gone  into  history,  and  no  recollection  of  him  could  be  pre- 
served except  by  some  such  inadequate  record  as  this.  It  was 
too  strong  and  brave  a  life  to  pass  wholly  out  of  the  knowledge 
of  men. 


A   WORLD  POLICE.  241 

A  WORLD  POLICE. 

In  the  fall  of  1884  my  wife  and  I  were  invited  to  address 
the  annual  meeting  of  the  Connecticut  Agricultural  Society  to 
be  held  at  Meriden.  I  prepared  a  short  address  occupying  but 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  in  its  delivery,  while  she,  as  was  expected, 
delivered  the  principal  address  of  the  occasion.  Her  subject 
was  "  Woman's  Work  in  Sanitation."  The  printed  report  of 
the  meeting  says  that  "  Mrs.  Hooker  spoke  over  an  hour,  with- 
out notes,  holding  the  fixed  and  interested  attention  of  the 
audience."  My  address  was  on  the  moral  questions  growing 
out  of  the  existence  of  filth  diseases,  and  the  duty  of  Christian 
nations  to  unite  in  policing  the  whole  world  against  their  out- 
breaks. It  was  as  follows  : — 

Robert  Ingersoll,  in  one  of  his  audacious  speeches,  in  which 
he  discusses  not  only  the  mistakes  of  Moses,  but  the  mistakes  of 
the  Deity,  has  said  that,  if  he  were  making  a  world,  he  would 
make  health  and  not  disease  contagious.  That  is.  if  a  healthy 
man  should  come  in  contact  with  a  man  who  has  the  small  pox,  he 
would  have  the  latter  catch  health  of  the  healthy  man,  and  not 
the  healthy  man  catch  the  small  pox  from  the  sick  one. 

It  seems  at  first  sight  a  little  strange  that  a  God  who  is  omnip- 
otent and  benevolent  and  all- wise  should  not  have  made  some 
such  arrangement  in  planning  his  universe;  but  the  difficulty 
undoubtedly  is  that  God  is  all-wise,  as  well  as  omnipotent  and 
benevolent.  We  wonder  often  at  the  slow  progress  of  moral 
ideas  in  the  world,  when  God  might  enlighten  and  quicken  and 
elevate  human  hearts  by  the  exercise  of  his  spiritual  power. 
How  can  he  let  the  world  groan  so  long  under  moral  evils,  under 
ignorance,  under  oppression,  when  by  the  exercise  of  his  power 
the  world  might  be  filled  with  light  and  righteousness  and  peace  ? 
Why  has  he  let  those  powers  of  nature  which  man  is  now  em- 
ploying for  such  beneficent  uses  lie  so  long  undiscovered  ?  Why 
are  we  at  the  present  day  kept  in  ignorance  of  powers  of  nature 
that  a  later  generation  may  discover,  and  with  them  work  out 
results  far  more  astonishing  than  any  that  our  own  day  of  great 
invention  and  discovery  has  known  ? 

A  plausible  explanation  of  it  all,  possibly  the  true  one,  is  found 
in  this  —  that  it  is  for  man's  highest  good  that  he  work  out  his  own 
salvation.  If  everything  were  done  for  us,  we  should  always 
remain  mere  children.  Necessity  is  the  mother  not  only  of  inven- 
tion, but  of  all  wholesome  industry. 


242  REMINISCENCES. 

In  the  tropical  regions  nature  is  luxuriant  in  its  productiveness. 
Man's  wants  are  few.  He  needs  little  clothing.  He  needs  no 
artificial  heat.  He  becomes  indolent  and  thriftless  and  improvi- 
dent. In  the  midst  of  the  wealth  of  nature  he  is  actually  poorer 
than  the  Northern  man  who  has  to  force  his  crops  out  of  a  reluc- 
tant soil,  and  to  encounter  and  provide  for  the  cold  of  the  long 
northern  winters.  This  necessity  makes  him  vastly  the  superior 
in  every  quality  of  manhood  of  his  luxurious  and  indolent  fellow- 
man  of  the  tropics. 

So  if  God  did  for  us,  in  the  progress  of  discovery,  in  the  pro- 
gress of  liberty,  in  the  progress  of  his  own  truth,  what  we  now 
have  to  do  so  laboriously  for  ourselves,  we  should  not  have  a 
tenth  of  the  moral  stamina  that  we  now  acquire  by  scientific  and 
social  and  moral  and  Christian  work.  The  need  of  the  world  puts 
upon  us  a  great  moral  obligation,  and  we  never  rise  to  such 
grandeur  as  when  we  try  faithfully  and  with  God's  help,  sought 
and  given,  to  meet  that  obligation.  God  never  meant  to  leave  us 
the  flabby  creatures  that  we  should  be,  both  mentally  and  mor- 
ally, if  we  had  no  busy  lives  to  lead,  lives  of  duty,  lives  of  earnest 
work. 

And  so  in  this  matter  of  disease.  If  disease  did  not  tend  to 
spread  itself  ;  if,  as  Mr.  Ingersoll  amused  himself  with  imagining, 
disease  had  but  to  reach  out  and  touch  a  healthy  man,  and  it 
would  disappear  and  its  victim  be  well  again,  we  should  lose  out 
of  our  lives  a  great  opportunity  for  humane  and  benevolent  work; 
we  should  find  in  the  prevalence  of  disease  and  mortality  no  call 
upon  our  sympathy  and  benevolence  and  self-denial.  As  in  the 
case  of  the  king's  evil,  which  the  superstition  of  past  ages  sup- 
posed to  be  curable  by  the  mere  touch  of  the  king,  all  that  would 
be  wanted  would  be  the  mere  perfunctory  act  of  touching  the 
diseased  man,  when  he  would  arise  and  take  up  his  bed  and 
walk. 

But  not  only  should  we  lose  out  of  our  lives  this  beautiful 
spirit  of  helpfulness  and  sympathy  towards  others,  but  should  lose 
a  great  moral  education  in  the  loss  of  the  necessity  of  keeping 
our  own  persons  and  families  and  dwellings  clean  and  wholesome. 
A  perpetual  vigilance  against  the  inroads  of  disease  gives  us  a 
mental  and  moral  alertness,  a  constant  spirit  of  thoughtfulness 
and  forecast  that  tend  to  elevate  and  strengthen  our  manhood. 
God's  providence  is  a  blessed  thing  to  trust  to  where  that  is  our 
only  refuge  ;  but  a  man  who  is  a  man  will  be,  as  far  as  he  is  able, 
a  providence  to  himself  and  his  household. 


A   WORLD  POLICE.  243 

But  there  is  another  great  lesson  to  be  learned  from  the  fact 
that  disease  springs  into  life  and  activity  whenever  the  conditions 
are  favorable  for  it.  Of  all  our  diseases  the  class  called  zymotic  is 
the  most  numerous.  You  will  find  it  largely  represented  in  the 
monthly  statements  of  our  State  Board  of  Health.  These  dis- 
eases are  otherwise  known  as  "  filth  diseases, "  and  are  often  so 
designated.  That  is,  these  diseases  have  their  origin  and  suste- 
nance in  filth.  Now  if  filth  were  harmless,  if  a  family  could  wal- 
low, as  swine  do,  in  a  perfect  pool  of  filth,  and  no  harm  come 
from  it,  how  many  would  do  so  ?  We  find  it  now,  even  with  the 
pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  them  by  public  opinion,  self-inter- 
est, and  the  Board  of  Health,  very  difficult  to  make  some  of  our 
city  people  live  in  cleanliness  that  is  much  above  that  of  pig-stys. 
But  filth,  if  physically  harmless,  would  yet  be  as  noxious  morally 
as  it  now  is.  It  would  still  be  the  indication  and  the  promoter  of 
a  low  civilization.  It  would  still  accompany  and  promote  the  loss 
of  self-respect,  the  practice  of  vice,  and  barbarism  generally. 
Indeed,  the  low  state  of  the  physical  condition  caused  by  filth  is  a 
great  promoter  of  intemperance,  by  the  craving  which  it  causes 
for  stimulants,  and  this  not  in  the  lower  classes  alone,  but  among 
those  whom  we  call  respectable.  Indeed,  the  very  word  "  filth  " 
has  come  to  have  a  moral  meaning,  as  we  speak  of  the  filth  of 
vice,  and  the  Scriptures  constantly  apply  the  term  "  filthy  "  to  the 
depraved.  The  necessity,  then,  for  the  sake  of  health  of  getting 
rid  of  filth  is  a  great  helper  of  civilization,  the  handmaid  of  virtue 
and  godliness.  The  apostle,  who  understood  this  well,  has  said 
that  ' '  cleanliness  is  next  to  godliness. " 

But  we  come  to  a  still  greater  lesson.  God  has  meant  to  bind 
his  earthly  children  into  a  great  human  brotherhood.  The  apostle 
has  said  that  when  one  member  suffers  all  the  members  suffer 
with  it.  This  was  not  intended  so  much  as  a  statement  of  a  fact, 
as  of  a  great  moral  principle.  God  meant  that  we  should  all  suffer 
together,  as  if  we  were  one  large  family,  thus  imposing  upon  us 
all  the  duty  of  looking  out  for  our  fellowman  and  his  needs. 
There  never  was  a  meaner  rule  of  life  than  that  which  I  have  so 
often  heard  expressed,  that  "I  take  care  of  myself,  and  if  every 
other  man  would  do  the  same  thing  it  would  be  all  that  is 
wanted."  But  other  men  will  not  take  care  of  themselves.  Per- 
haps they  are  crippled,  or  broken  down  in  health,  and  cannot. 
More  likely  they  are  intemperate  or  vicious  and  don't  try  —  in 
the  last  case  involving  their  innocent  wives  and  children.  The 


244  REMINISCENCES. 

poor  we  have  always  with  us,  and  probably  always  shall  have. 
And  when  they  come  to  suffering  they  must  be  helped  ;  and  God 
has  given  the  opportunity  for  it  to  their  more  prospered  fellow- 
men  as  a  precious  opportunity  that  they  cannot  ignore  or  neglect 
without  a  moral  loss  to  themselves. 

And  when  the  wretchedly  poor,  left  to  live  in  crowded  apart- 
ments and  in  filth,  find  disease  breaking  out  in  their  midst,  then 
comes  the  penalty  to  those  who  have  neglected  them.  The  dis- 
ease spreads  like  a  fire.  It  does  not  spare  your  family  nor  mine. 
If  a  fire  is  started  in  a  city,  no  matter  in  how  mean  a  quarter, 
every  mansion  on  its  aristocratic  streets  is  in  some  danger.  No- 
body knows  where  the  fire  will  stop.  What  was  it  to  burning 
Chicago  whether  the  fire  started  in  a  palace  or  a  hovel?  We  are 
put,  then,  under  bonds  to  look  out  for  the  condition  of  our  poorest 
and  most  wretched  fellowmen  —  under  a  bond  with  a  great 
penalty.  Our  fellowman  is  our  brother,  and  in  neglecting  his  wel- 
fare we  neglect  our  own.  We  may  forget  him,  but  the  pestilence 
that  he  breeds  and  fosters  will  not  forget  us. 

And  this  leads  me  to  suggest  something  that  I  verily  believe 
will  be  seriously  considered  by  Christian  nations  before  long,  and 
I  trust  come  into  practical"  operation  before  we  have  gone  far  into 
the  next  century,  and  which  has  in  it  an  inspiring  element  of 
grandeur  and  of  millennial  promise.  The  whole  world  is  tending 
towards  a  vast  unity.  The  telegraph  and  steamship  have  brought 
us  close  together.  London  was  farther  from  New  York  fifty 
years  ago  than  Japan  is  to-day.  We  are  having  world  exposi- 
tions and  world  conventions,  and  men  have  ceased  altogether 
looking  upon  a  foreigner  as  in  the  old  sense  an  alien,  much  less  as  an 
enemy.  Now  I  think  we  shall  before  long  have  a  World's  Police. 
And  this  world's  police  will  deal  with  the  world's  filth  as  the 
board  of  health  of  a  city  deals  with  its  foul  and  crowded  alleys. 
Cholera  originates  in  the  delta  of  the  Ganges  about  100  miles 
north  of  Calcutta.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  to  have  its  perpetual 
home  there.  It  has  existed  there  for  centuries.  It  is  a  low,  un- 
drained  region,  swarming  with  an  idle,  dirty  people  whose  dwell- 
ings are  full  of  filth.  Occasionally  the  disease  becomes  specially 
virulent  and  breaks  its  accustomed  bounds  and  starts  on  its 
devastating  sweep  around  the  world.  The  loss  to  the  world  by 
one  of  its  great  progresses,  like  that  of  a  monarch  from  the 
infernal  regions,  is  beyond  easy  computation.  In  Bombay  alone 
150,000  lives  were  destroyed  by  it  in  1820.  We  have  seen  how  the 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE.  245 

inhabitants  of  lower  France  and  Italy  have  fallen  before  it  during 
the  past  summer.  Its  ravages  may  be  far  greater  in  Europe  and 
in  this  country  the  coming  year.  Its  victims  can  be  counted  only 
by  the  hundreds  of  thousands.  And  then  add  to  this  the  pecuni- 
ary loss,  the  injury  to  business,  the  actual  outlay  in  dealing  with 
disease.  Its  cost  can  be  counted  only  in  hundreds  of  millions. 

Probably  half  this  loss  of  money,  to  say  nothing  about  lives, 
would  pay  the  whole  cost  of  clearing  up  the  foul  spot  where  the 
disease  has  its  home,  and  stamping  it  out  of  existence. 

I  am  no  prophet,  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet,  but  let  me  give  it  to 
you  as  my  prediction  that  before  many  years  all  Christian  nations 
will  unite  in  policing  the  world,  and  in  taking  in  hand  these 
plague  spots  wherever  found,  and  cleaning  them  up,  with  as  much 
authority  and  determination  as  a  city  board  of  health  cleans  up 
the  foul  places  of  a  city. 

And  when  that  time  comes,  not  only  will  the  health  of  the 
world  be  better,  but  there  will  have  been  a  great  step  taken  in  the 
acknowledgment  of  a  human  brotherhood.  Where  Christian 
nations  join  in  a  work  of  so  universal  interest  and  benefit  where 
will  be  the  spirit  of  war  among  them  ?  The  time  will  have  come 
when,  as  Tennyson  says  — 

"  The  war  drums  throb  no  longer  and  the  battle  flags  are  furled, 
In  the  Parliament  of  Man,  the  Federation  of  the  World." 

And  when,  as  he  says  again  — 

"  The  kindly  earth  shall  slumber,  wrapt  in  universal  law." 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

The  admission  of  women  to  an  absolute  political  equality 
with  men  is  so  sure  to  come  and  that  at  a  not  distant  day,  that 
I  do  not  care  to  use  any  of  my  space  in  its  advocacy.  The 
arguments  for  it  are  well  known,  and  are  absolutely  unan- 
swered, while  the  actual  trials  of  the  experiment  in  some  of  our 
western  states,  and  in  several  foreign  countries,  have  proved 
it  to  be  of  very  great  benefit  to  the  communities  in  which  it  has 
been  established.  Nothing  stands  in  its  way  but  prejudice 
and  the  selfish  schemes  of  politicians,  and  both  will  yield  to 
the  constant  pressure  of  the  advancing  reform.  I  introduce 
the  subject  here  to  put  on  record  for  the  honor  of  my  memory 
my  own  earnest  approval  of  the  reform,  and  the  fact  that  I  have 


246  REMINISCENCES. 

worked  earnestly  for  it  for  many  years.  I  have  no  fear  to  stake 
my  whole  character  as  a  man  of  some  foresight  and  judgment 
upon  the  proposition  of  its  general  acceptance  and  establish- 
ment in  the  first  half  of  the  twentieth  century,  and  then  of  a 
prevailing  wonder  that  there  had  ever  been  any  other  system 
thought  of. 

I  will  add  here,  as  strongly  expressing  the  view  of  one  of 
the  best  known  and  most  respected  of  our  women,  a  few  words 
from  a  recent  address  of  Clara  Barton  at  a  New  England  meet- 
ing of  the  friends  of  the  cause : 

I  believe  I  must  have  been  born  believing  in  the  full  right  of 
women  to  all  the  privileges  and  positions  which  nature  and  justice 
accord  to  them  in  common  with  other  human  beings.  Perfectly 
equal  rights  —  human  rights.  There  was  never  any  question  in 
my  mind  in  regard  to  this.  I  did  not  purchase  my  freedom  with 
a  price  ;  I  was  born  free  ;  and  when,  as  a  younger  woman,  I  heard 
the  subject  discussed,  it  seemed  simply  ridiculous  that  any  sensi- 
ble, rational  person  should  question  it.  And  when  later  the  phase 
of  woman's  right  to  suffrage  came  up,  it  was  to  me  only  a  part  of 
the  whole,  just  as  natural,  just  as  right,  and  just  as  certain  to  take 
place.  And  whenever  I  have  been  urged,  as  a  petitioner,  to  ask 
for  this  privilege  for  woman,  a  kind  of  dazed,  bewildered  feeling 
has  come  over  me.  Of  whom  should  I  ask  this  privilege  ?  Who 
possessed  the  right  to  confer  it?  Who  had  greater  right  than 
woman  herself  ?  Was  it  man,  and  if  so,  where  did  he  get  it  ? 

There  is  once  in  a  while  a  monarch  who  denies  the  right  of 
man  to  place  a  crown  upon  his  head.  Only  the  great  Jehovah 
can  crown  and  anoint  him  for  his  work,  and  he  reaches  out,  takes 
the  crown,  and  places  it  upon  his  head  with  his  own  hand.  I 
suspect  that  this  is,  in  effect,  what  women  are  doing  to-day. 
Virtually  there  is  no  one  to  give  her  the  right  to  govern  herself,  as 
men  govern  themselves  by  self-made  and  self-approved  laws  of 
the  land.  But  in  one  way  or  another,  sooner  or  later,  she  is  com- 
ing to  it.  And  the  number  of  thoughtful  and  right-minded  men 
who  will  oppose  will  be  much  smaller  than  we  think  ;  and  when  it 
is  really  an  accomplished  fact,  all  will  wonder,  as  I  have  done, 
what  the  question  ever  was. 

Clara  Barton  represents  the  early  devoted  workers  for  this 
reform.  The  present  generation  can  hardly  realize  what  in- 
sulting epithets  were  heaped  upon  them  by  public  speakers 


SPIRITUALISM.  247 

and  the  press.  A  leading  religious  paper  called  them  "  a  few 
discontented  women."  I  heard  a  clergyman  from  the  pulpit 
denounce  them  as  "  desecrating  the  name  of  woman,"  and 
nearly  all  the  papers  held  them  up  as  unsexing  themselves, 
and  as  dissatisfied  that  they  had  not  been  made  men.  And  yet 
these  women  were  among  the  noblest  of  whom  history  has 
ever  recorded  its  admiration.  So  far  from  being  discontented 
with  their  sex,  they  felt  in  it  a  power  to  work  for  the  progress 
of  the  world  that  they  longed  to  use  for  the  world's  good,  and 
which  would  fill  a  want  by  which  all  the  social  forces  were 
weakened.  They  were  far  from  being  insensitive  to  the  ribald 
attacks  that  were  made  upon  them,  but  bore  up  under  them 
as  the  martyrs  of  old  bore  up  under  their  persecutions.  It  is 
only  by  such  crucifixions  that  the  world  is  redeemed.  Those 
days  of  insult  have  passed  away,  but  most  of  those  early 
workers  have  gone  to  their  rest  and  reward,  and  the  later 
workers  are  treated  with  a  respect  which  shows  clearly  how 
their  cause  has  advanced  in  the  public  estimation. 

It  is  greatly  to  our  discredit  as  men  that  we  have  left  the 
self-sacrificing  women  who  have  worked  for  this  reform  to 
struggle  alone,  without  the  sympathy  and  active  aid  that  we 
could  so  easily  have  given  them.  There  have  been  a  few  noble 
men  who  have  been  their  earnest  helpers,  such  as  Garrison, 
Phillips,  Beecher,  Curtis,  Higginson,  and  others,  but  the  great 
majority  of  men  have  either  actively  opposed  the  movement 
or  have  regarded  it  with  absolute  indifference.  And  yet  the 
end  to  be  attained,  a  perfect  democracy  and  a  purer  govern- 
ment, have  been  matters  of  the  supremest  importance  to  men 
as  well  as  to  women.  I  think  the  journalist  or  public  man 
who  is  leaving  a  record  of  opposition  to  this  reform  is  leaving 
a  stain  upon  his  memory  which  his  children  will  mourn  that 
they  have  not  the  power  to  efface. 


SPIRITUALISM. 

More  than  twenty  years  ago  I  became  convinced,  upon  the 
fullest  and  most  careful  examination,  that  modern  spiritualism 
is  based  on  fact  and  is  of  great  importance.  That  opinion  I 
have  held  ever  since,  only  confirmed  by1  my  later  observations. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  there  have  been  many  cases  of  delusion 


248  REMINISCENCES. 

and  some  of  fraud,  but  I  gave  consideration  only  to  phenomena 
which  upon  the  severest  test  I  was  satisfied"  were  genuine.  I 
joined  no  spiritualist  society,  as  I  did  not  feel  willing  to  make 
myself  responsible  for  what  other  spiritualists  might  say  or  do. 
But  my  position  in  the  matter  was  well  known  by  the  public. 

In  December,  1888,  the  ministers  of  Hartford,  who  then 
held  weekly  meetings  for  conference,  at  which  the  clergy  of 
all  denominations  were  invited,  and  which  were  generally  well 
attended,  invited  me  to  address  them  at  their  next  meeting  on 
Spiritualism.  I  thereupon  prepared  an  address  which  I  read 
before  them,  and  to  which  they  listened  with  respectful  atten- 
tion and  apparent  interest,  asking  me  numerous  questions  at 
its  close.  A  few  days  later  I  received  a  letter  from  Hon.  Ed- 
ward W.  Seymour,  a  leading  lawyer  of  Bridgeport,  and  soon 
after  elected  a  judge  of  our  Supreme  Court,  stating  that  he 
had  heard  of  my  address  before  the  Hartford  clergy,  and  that 
he  was  greatly  interested  in  the  subject,  and  asking  me  to  bring 
the  address  with  me  when,  a  week  or  two  later,  I  was  to  attend 
a  session  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  Bridgeport.  I  did  so,  and 
Judge  Seymour  got  up  an  evening  meeting  in  the  court  room, 
at  which  three  of  the  five  judges  of  the  court  attended  and  sev- 
eral of  the  lawyers,  with  their  wives,  with  one  of  the  city  clergy- 
men. I  read  the  address  and  all  seemed  to  listen  with  much 
interest  and  respect. 

I  cannot  now  present  the  subject  to  the  readers  of  my 
Reminiscences  in  any  better  way  than  by  giving  that  address, 
with  some  abridgment.  It  was  as  follows : — 

A  spiritualist  is  one  who  believes  that  disembodied  spirits  may 
communicate  with  spirits  in  the  flesh.  The  question  whether 
they  have  done  so,  and  may  do  so,  is  wholly  a  question  of  fact, 
like  any  other  question  of  fact  presented  in  a  court  of  law,  or  in 
business,  for  men  to  consider  and  decide.  It  is  to  be  determined 
by  evidence.  There  is  a  great  presumption  against  the  existence 
of  such  intercommunication,  growing  out  of  the  very  strong 
belief  to  the  contrary  which  has  so  long  and  so  extensively  pre- 
vailed. But  this  affects  only  the  question  of  the  quantum  of 
evidence  necessary  to  establish  the  fact.  In  the  face  of  such  a 
presumption  there  must  be  a  great  preponderance  of  evidence  in 
favor  of  the  spiritualistic  theory.  After  the  question  of  fact 
is  settled  in  favor  of  that  theory,  there  will  remain  a  large 


SPIRITUALISM.  249 

practical  question  of  much  importance  with  which  every  person 
must  deal  for  himself.  This  question  is,  to  what  moral  use  shall 
the  fact  be  put  ?  It  may  take  the  form  of  a  series  of  questions  : 
How  are  my  religious  opinions  to  be  affected  by  it  ?  How  my 
teachings  ?  How  far  are  we  to  accept  the  statements  made  by 
spirits  on  the  other  side  as  to  their  condition  and  experiences 
over  there  ?  What  is  the  philosophy  of  spiritualism  ?  These  are 
questions  of  great  importance  and  interest,  but  it  is  useless  to 
touch  them  until  we  have  first  settled  the  question  of  fact.  I 
will  limit  myself  on  this  occasion  wholly  to  this  question.  In 
doing  this  I  propose  to  confine  myself  to  facts  that  have  fallen 
under  my  own  observation,  and  I  shall,  to  make  the  matter 
clearer,  present  them  by  classes  —  taking  generally  only  a  repre- 
sentative fact  or  two  from  each  class. 

And  first,  as  the  lowest  class  of  phenomena,  I  take  purely 
physical  phenomena,  by  which  I  mean  the  manifestation  of  a 
mysterious  force  that  has,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  no  connection 
with  intelligence.  About  three  years  ago  my  wife  and  I  were 
invited  by  a  friend  in  this  city,  a  widow,  to  spend  an  evening  at 
her  house  and  meet  an  elderly  lady  who  was  visiting  her,  and 
who  belonged  in  the  western  part  of  the  state  of  New  York.  I 
came  afterwards  to  know  the  lady  well.  She  had  uncommon 
mediumistic  gifts,  but  she  exercised  them  solely  for  her  friends, 
and  never  for  compensation.  She  was  professedly,  and  seemed 
to  be  sincerely,  a  Christian  woman.  Her  trustworthiness,  how- 
ever, does  not  become  an  important  factor  in  the  case.  We  met 
in  the  parlor  of  our  hostess,  where  there  was  a  grand  piano, 
which  I  was  told  weighed  over  a  thousand  pounds.  It  stood 
against  the  wall  on  one  side  of  the  room,  and  at  about  the  middle 
of  the  wall  on  that  side.  There  were  present  one  gentleman 
besides  myself,  and  five  ladies,  including  the  medium.  We  all 
stood  up  by  the  piano,  except  one  lady  who  played  upon  it, 
and  put  our  hands  on  top  of  it.  Very  soon  the  large  end  of  it 
began  to  move  out  into  the  room.  As  it  did  so  the  top  board, 
which  projected  over  the  sides  about  two  inches,  began  to  rub 
against  the  wall  at  the  smaller  end  of  the  piano,  and  I  went  there 
to  try  to  move  it  out  a  little  way.  I  applied  my  whole  strength, 
but  could  not  move  it.  As  soon  as  I  desisted  it  moved  out  of 
itself,  till  it  was  a  few  inches  from  the  wall.  Then  the  whole 
piano  began  to  move  out  slowly,  and  by  hitches,  till  it  had 
reached  the  middle  of  the  room.  On  its  way  it  stopped  several 
times  and  lifted  up  its  side,  resting  wholly  on  its  legs  on  the 
17 


250 


REMINISCENCES. 


other  side,  and  on  reaching  the  middle  of  the  room  again  lifted 
itself  up  in  the  same  way,  the  feet  rising  several  inches  from  the 
floor  and  remaining  so  for  several  seconds.  To  make  sure  that 
there  was  no  optical  illusion  I  stooped  down  and  passed  a  book 
through  the  space  between  one  of  the  upraised  feet  and  the 
carpet.  During  all  this  time  no  one  was  lifting  at  all,  our  hands 
were  merely  resting  on  top  of  the  piano.  When  all  was  over  we 
undertook  to  roll  the  piano  back  to  its  place,  and  it  was  all  we 
could  do  with  our  united  strength. 

I  could  give  you  many  facts  that  belong  to  this  class  of  what  I 
call  unintelligent  force.  But  phenomena  of  this  class  are  of  but 
little  interest  except  as  they  show  the  reality  of  some  force 
entirely  external  to  ourselves  It  may  be  some  undiscovered 
natural  force  —  electricity,  perhaps.  But  they  have  an  impor- 
tant relation  to  spiritualism  in  this,  that  they  are  a  part  of  a  great 
variety  of  mysterious  phenomena,  and  no  mode  of  solution  can 
be  accepted  which  does  not  cover  them  all  ;  and  when  one  is 
found  that  seems  manifestly  to  cover  them  all,  it  is  greatly  sup- 
ported by  the  fact  that  it  does  so.  It  is  the  weakness  of  the 
anti-spiritualistic  explanations  that  each  set  of  phenomena  has  its 
separate  explanation,  which  cannot  be  applied  to  any  other  set. 
Thus  fraud,  mind-reading,  an  occult  natural  force,  have  each  a 
very  limited  application,  while  the  facts  demand  some  general 
theory. 

I  come,  secondly,  to  a  higher  class  of  physical  phenomena  — 
higher  in  this,  that  they  are  operated  by  a  manifest  intelligence. 
This  class  includes,  and  may  be  illustrated  by,  rappings,  through 
which  intelligent  communications  are  made.  These  have  often 
been  used  in  private  families,  where  some  member  has  been 
found  to  have  mediumistic  gifts.  The  alphabet  is  repeated,  and 
at  some  letter  a  rap  is  heard.  To  this  letter  are  added,  in  the 
same  way,  another  and  another,  till  a  whole  sentence  is  wrought 
out.  I  have  received  most  interesting  and  characteristic  com- 
munications in  this  way.  In  many  cases  I  have  had  name  after 
name  of  departed  friends  spelled  out  to  me,  as  being  present,  and 
that  in  a  strange  city,  where  the  medium  did  not  even  know  my 
name.  Where  the  medium  is  a  public  one  there  is  room  for  a 
suspicion  of  fraud  or  for  the  explanation  of  mind-reading,  as  the 
message  may  possibly  be  a  manufactured  one,  or  the  name  may 
be  got  by  mind-reading.  But  I  have  seen  many  cases  where 
neither  of  these  explanations  could  possibly  apply.  This  I  will 
illustrate  by  a  single  case.  I  could  give  scores.  I  was  spending  a 


SPIRITUALISM.  251 

few  days  with  a  friend  in  Providence.  A  lady,  a  member  of  his 
family,  had  become  a  medium,  and  at  dinner  every  day  we  had 
raps  indicating  the  presence  of  spirits.  There  were  thus  named 
to  me  numerous  friends,  whom  none  of  the  family  knew.  One 
day  I  left  the  table  early  to  finish  a  letter  which  I  wished  to  mail, 
and  came  back  as  the  members  of  the  family  were  leaving  the 
table.  Said  my  host,  "  You  did  not  stay  to  meet  your  friends. 
Do  you  know  anybody  by  the  name  of  Edward  Hart?"  "Yes," 
said  I,  "he  was  my  lifelong  friend,  the  husband  of  my  own 
cousin,  who  died  recently."  "Well,"  said  he,  "he  came  while 
you  were  gone,  and  gave  his  name,  and  said  it  was  for  you." 
Here,  observe,  there  was  no  room  for  the  mind-reading  theory ; 
while  a  fraud  in  the  case  is  so  remote  a  possibility  as  to  be  entitled 
to  no  consideration. 

I  come,  thirdly,  to  slate-writing.  This  I  place  next  in  the  list 
because  it  seems  to  me  to  be  absolutely  unexplainable  upon  any 
other  than  the  spiritualistic  theory.  The  Seybert  Commission  con- 
cluded that  it  was  all  a  fraud — the  slates  being  exchanged  by 
sleight  of  hand  or  the  writing  being  done  by  the  other  hand  of 
the  medium  (one  hand  being  occupied  with  the  holding  of  the 
slate).  No  one  who  has  watched  the  proceedings  with  an  honest 
purpose  can,  1  think,  possibly  admit  either  of  these  explanations; 
I  spent  an  evening  with  the  medium  Slade,  a  few  years  ago,  at  a 
friend's  house  in  Hartford.  I  carried  my  own  slate,  a  new  fold- 
ing one.  In  the  first  place  he  told  me  to  write  on  a  paper  the 
name  of  some  spirit  friend  from  whom  I  wished  to  hear.  I  did  so, 
and  the  paper,  without  being  shown  to  him,  was  by  his  direction 
crumpled  up  in  my  hand  and  laid  on  the  table,  where  it  lay 
untouched  during  the  performance  that  followed.  This  require- 
ment on  his  part  was  a  suspicious  one,  and  if  the  communication 
which  it  brought  had  been  an  oral  one,  would  have  destroyed  its 
value.  But  the  important  thing  was  the  getting  of  a  communi- 
cation written  upon  the  slate.  I  could  not  see  that  the  theory  of 
mind-reading  could  help  in  that  matter.  A  bit  of  slate  pencil 
was  put  inside  the  folded  slate,  and  Slade,  standing  on  one  side 
of  the  table,  held  one  corner  of  the  slate  with  his  right  hand,  and 
I  on  the  other  side  the  opposite  corner  with  my  left  hand.  His 
left  hand  was  then  laid  on  the  table  and  my  right  hand  put  on 
top  of  his.  The  gas  was  then  lowered,  but  not  turned  entirely 
off.  It  was  easy  to  see  all  the  nearer  objects  about  the  room.  I 
soon  heard  the  pencil  scratching  inside,  and  when  it  stopped  the 
gas  was  turned  more  fully  on.  Slade  had  not  moved  —  the  slate 


252  REMINISCENCES. 

had  not  moved  from  my  grasp.  And  within  it  was  a  brief  affec- 
tionate message  signed  by  the  initials  of  the  friend  whose  name  I 
had  written.  The  friend  was  a  young  lady  to  whom  I  had  done 
many  kindnesses  during  three  or  four  years  of  a  decline,  and  she 
has  come  to  me,  or  appeared  to  do  so,  more  frequently  than 
perhaps  any  other  friend  on  the  other  side. 

A  few  years  ago  I  went  with  a  friend  in  Boston  (a  Congrega- 
tional clergyman,  who  was  much  interested  in  the  investigation 
of  spiritualistic  phenomena)  to  a  Mrs.  Philbrick,  a  woman  in 
whom  he  had  confidence,  and  who  seemed  to  me  to  be  trust- 
worthy, who  was,  however,  a  public  medium.  I  was  introduced 
to  her  by  my  friend,  but  she  knew  nothing  whatever  of  me  except 
my  name  thus  given  her.  In  this  case  I  used  her  slates.  An 
open  slate,  with  a  bit  of  pencil  on  it,  was  held  under  the  top  of 
the  table,  she  holding  it  on  one  side  of  the  table  and  I  on  the 
other,  her  other  hand  laid  on  the  table,  and  my  other  hand  on 
hers.  The  gas  was  turned  wholly  off,  or  so  nearly  so  that  the 
room  was  dark.  Soon  the  scratching  was  heard.  After  it 
stopped  and  the  gas  was  turned  on,  we  found  a  long  message, 
nearly  filling  the  slate,  addressed  to  my  wife  by  her  first  name, 
and  signed  "P.  W.  D,"  the  initials  of  the  name  of  a  dear  friend 
of  hers  who  had  died  a  year  or  two  before.  What  is  noteworthy 
here  is,  that  while  the  communication  seemed  to  come  almost 
certainly  from  Mrs.  D.,  it  yet  stated  that  a  certain  person  (whose 
name  she  gave)  would  soon  come  over.  This  person  has  since 
died,  but  not  till  nearly  ten  ,years  after  this.  After  this  we  took 
other  slates  and  in  the  same  way  got  several  messages  from 
departed  friends,  another  to  my  wife,  one  to  myself  signed  by  a 
familiar  name,  and  I  think  two  to  my  friend.  Those  intended  for 
myself  or  my  wife  were  characteristic,  and  alluded  to  incidents 
that  a  stranger  could  have  known  nothing  of.  I  could  fill  many 
pages  with  such  statements.  There  would  be  none,  however, 
more  striking  than  these.  I  have  regarded  the  theories  of  mind- 
reading  and  of  fraud  as  entirely  at  fault  as  explanations  of  these 
phenomena.  If  the  matter  written  had  been  in  my  mind,  so  that 
the  medium  could  have  read  it  all  there,  how  could  it  have  been 
got  upon  the  slate  ?  But  the  matter,  so  far  from  being  in  my 
mind,  was  every  time  a  surprise  to  me. 

I  take,  fourthly,  in  the  ascending  scale,  oral  communications 
through  trance  mediums.  I  class  with  them  written  communica- 
tions. This  class  of  spritualistic  phenomena  is  to  me  the  most 
interesting  and  the  most  convincing,  and  I  shall  dwell  upon  it 


SPIRITUA  LISM.  253 

more  at  length  than  I  have  upon  the  others.  I  shall  not  attempt 
to  reduce  them  to  any  particular  order,  but  shall  select  a  few  out 
of  a  great  many  with  reference  to  their  clearer  exclusion  of  the 
idea  of  mind-reading,  and  with  less  reference  to  their  value  than 
to  the  proof  which  they  give  of  a  supra-mundane  origin. 

About  eight  years  ago  a  gentleman  was  staying  at  my  house 
who  proved  to  be  a  rare  medium.  He  had  no  suspicion  of  it 
(that  is,  he  said  so),  though  he  told  us  of  some  strange  experi- 
ences that  he  could  not  understand,  and  of  his  frequently  hearing 
raps  in  his  room,  especially  in  the  night,  that  he  could  not  account 
for.  He  professed  not  to  believe  in  spiritualism,  and  seemed 
inclined  to  materialistic  views.  At  the  request  of  my  wife  and 
myself  he  had  several  sittings  with  us.  He  would  go  into  a  state 
of  unconsciousness  or  apparent  sleep,  and  after  an  hour  come  out 
of  it  with  no  knowledge  (as  he  declared  and  we  believed)  of  what 
had  happened  while  he  was  in  that  condition ;  but  he  had  given 
us  communications,  apparently  from  spirits,  of  which  we  had 
taken  quite  full  notes,  giving  us  names  that  we  knew  well,  but 
which  it  was  hardly  possible  that  he  could  have  known  of  (and 
he  declared  that  he  did  not),  and  often  names  of  which  we  knew 
nothing,  but  which  he  recognized  as  those  of  old  friends  of  his 
who  had  departed.  He  had  been  brought  up  in  a  family  of  little 
cultivation,  and  certain  errors  of  speech  had  become  imbeded  in 
his  English,  and  were  constantly  appearing  in  his  ordinary  con- 
versation ;  yet  some  of  the  communications,  purporting  to  come 
from  educated  minds,  were  expressed  in  the  best  of  English,  with 
no  intrusion  of  his  inaccuracies.  One  evening  Samuel  Bowles, 
formerly  editor  of  the  Springfield  Republican,  who  had  died  not 
long  before,  came.  He  and  I  had  been  great  friends.  He  always 
called  me  "John, "and  in  his  frequent  spiritualistic  communica- 
tions, in  different  places  and  before  different  mediums,  he  gener- 
ally so  addressed  me.  I  asked  him  who  were  with  him.  He 
named  several  persons,  and  among  them  Dr.  Smith,  a  Springfield 
physician,  who  had  died  a  short  time  before.  I  said  a  few  words 
to  him,  to  which  he  replied,  stammering  a  little  as  he  spoke.  I 
had  known  him  slightly,  and  knew  that  he  had  an  impediment  in 
his  speech,  but  it  was  wholly  out  of  my  mind.  It  is  stated  to  be 
a  general,  perhaps  universal,  rule,  that  spirits  returning  to  earth 
put  on  the  old  earth  conditions.  I  have  seen  many  illustrations 
of  this,  but  not  enough  to  safely  generalize  from.  Soon  after  Dr. 
Smith  came  my  wife  said,  "  I  am  glad  to  meet  you,  Dr.  Smith  ;  I 
have  often  heard  of  you,  but  never  saw  you. "  Said  he,  "  I  met 


254  REMINISCENCES. 

you  once,  Mrs.  Hooker."  "  Why,"  said  she,  "  I  have  no  recollec- 
tion of  it."  "Yes,"  said  he,  "  I  met  you  in  London."  I  could  not 
at  the  moment  recall  the  fact,  and  my  wife  was  totally  unable 
to,  and  we  passed  on  to  other  communications.  I  very  soon, 
however,  recollected  the  circumstances.  My  wife  and  I  were  in 
London  in  1875,  and  she  went  into  a  shop  on  Regent  street  to 
make  some  purchases,  while  I  went  on  to  attend  to  another  matter, 
and  was  to  call  for  her  there  on  my  way  back.  While  returning 
I  overtook  Bowles  and  Dr.  Smith,  and  we  stopped  and  had  a 
chat.  I  had  not  before  known  that  they  were  in  the  city,  or 
indeed  that  they  had  left  home.  After  a  while  I  said  to  Bowles 
that  my  wife  was  in  a  shop  near  by,  and  he  must  step  in  and  see 
her.  So  he  came  along,  and  Dr.  Smith  with  us.  She  was  sitting 
at  a  counter  looking  at  some  goods.  Bowles  shook  hands  with 
her  very  cordially,  but  Dr.  Smith  was  merely  formally  introduced, 
and  then  stepped  back  and  waited  at  the  door.  This  little  inci- 
dent (of  Dr.  Smith's  coming  in)  my  wife  had  totally  forgotten, 
and  could  not  recall  it  after  I  stated  my  recollection  of  it.  I  can- 
not see  how  any  theory  of  mind-reading  can  explain  this  occur- 
rence. I  suppose  mind-reading  to  be  the  reading  of  what  is  then 
in  one's  mind — of  what  the  mind  is  then  doing,  and  not  of  what 
is  laid  away  in  the  memory  and  perhaps  substantially  forgotten. 

Nearly  twenty  years  ago  I  made  the  acquaintance,  at  the  home 
of  a  friend  in  a  neighboring  city,  of  a  young  lady  whom  I  will 
call  Julia  Brown.  She  was  about  twenty-five  years  old,  belonged 
to  one  of  the  best  families  in  Brooklyn,  and  was  finely  educated 
and  of  very  bright  mind.  She  was  just  entering  upon  a  hopeless 
decline.  There  grew  up  a  warm  friendship  between  us,  and  from 
that  time  till  her  death,  some  five  years  later,  I  was  able  to  do 
much  for  her  comfort,  for  which  she  seemed  very  grateful.  No 
friend  from  the  other  world  has  come  to  me  more  frequently.  It 
was  she  whose  communication  appeared  on  the  slate  held  by 
Slade  and  myself,  before  mentioned.  In  1883  I  was  in  Boston, 
and  went  with  Rev.  Mr.  H.,  an  old  college  friend  who  was  greatly 
interested  in  these  investigations,  to  a  sitting  at  the  Berry  sisters. 
Some  things  I  have  since  seen  stated  tending  to  discredit  them, 
but  I  knew  nothing  of  them  at  this  time,  and  their  trustworthiness 
does  not  become  a  very  important  factor  in  the  matter  that  I  am 
to  state.  There  were,  I  should  judge,  twenty  or  more  people 
there.  All  sat  around  a  long,  narrow  table,  like  a  dining-room 
table,  which  it  probably  was.  My  friend  introduced  me  to  a  man 
whom  we  met  at  the  door,  but  my  mere  name  was  all  that  was 


SPIRITUALISM. 


255 


mentioned.  There  was  no  one  in  the  circle  that  I  had  ever  seen 
before,  except  my  friend,  and  he  sat  at  quite  a  distance  from  me. 
I  had  a  lady  on  one  side  of  me  and  a  gentleman  on  the  other. 
We  were  requested  to  join  hands.  All  had  sheets  of  note  paper 
and  a  pencil  laid  before  them.  The  gas  was  then  turned  off, 
leaving  us  in  total  darkness.  There  was  not  a  sound  or  an  appar- 
ent motion  in  the  room,  except  of  the  pencils  writing  on  the 
sheets  of  paper.  Presently  I  heard  a  distinct  whisper  in  my  ear, 
"  I  am  Julia  Brown."  I  was  amazed.  I  had  never  had  such  an 
experience  before.  I  said,  in  the  lowest  possible  whisper,  "  Won't 
you  repeat  that  ? "  The  voice  then  whispered,  with  perfect  dis- 
tinctness, "  I  am  Julia  Brown."  I  whispered  again,  "  Julia,  if 
that  is  you,  touch  me  on  my  right  temple."  Immediately  there 
were  two  little  pats  on  my  right  temple.  Then  a  gentle  hand 
played  with  my  hair  and  again  patted  me  on  the  forehead.  Soon 
the  gas  was  turned  on.  I  took  up  the  note  paper,  and  there  was 
on  it  a  message  addressed  to  me  and  signed  "Julia  Brown." 

Nearly  ten  years  ago  I  made  a  contract  with  a  florist  by  which 
he  was  to  hire  of  me  a  piece  of  land  in  Hartford  for  a  nursery 
and  garden,  with  a  small  house  upon  it,  with  the  expectation  of 
purchasing  it  at  a  price  agreed,  but  without  a  binding  agreement 
that  he  should  purchase,  as  he  felt  that  he  could  not  safely  come 
under  such  an  obligation.  After  a  while  he  wanted  to  have  me 
build  a  greenhouse  on  the  lot  and  thought  it  indispensable  that 
he  should  have  one.  I  had  just  been  subjected  to  a  heavy  loss 
as  surety  for  some  friends,  and  so  had  no  money  to  spare,  and 
there  was  a  serious  risk  that  he  might  not  be  able  to  buy,  in 
which  case  the  greenhouse  would  be  a  useless  piece  of  property 
to  me.  The  matter  was  held  by  me  for  consideration.  I  had  not 
spoken  of  it  to  a  human  being,  not  even  to  my  wife.  Just  then 
the  wife  of  a  friend  of  mine,  who  was  a  writing  medium,  told  her 
husband  one  morning  that  she  felt  impelled  to  go  to  Mr.  Hooker's 
—  that  she  could  not  say  for  what  purpose,  but  that  the  influence 
upon  her  was  very  strong.  He  at  once  got  up  his  carriage  and 
drove  her  to  my  house.  Both  my  wife  and  I  were  out.  She  then 
felt  herself  impelled  to  write  something.  She  took  a  sheet  of 
paper  and  wrote  a  message,  signed  "  Francis  Gillette "  (my 
brother-in-law  —  not  long  deceased  —  and  who  had  once  owned 
this  land  with  me  and  knew  all  about  my  affairs),  in  which  he 
addressed  me  as  his  "tender-hearted  brother,"  and  advised  me 
not  to  let  myself  be  induced  to  help  another  man  who  was  better 
able  to  take  care  of  himself  than  I  was  to  take  care  of  him.  I 


256  REMINISCENCES. 

came  in,  and  the  lady  said  to  me,  "  Here  is  a  message  for  you  ; 
perhaps  you  can  understand  it,  but  I  have  no  idea  what  it 
means."  I  read  it  and  said,  "I  understand  perfectly  what  it 
means."  This  decided  me  not  to  make  the  investment.  And  the 
wisdom  of  the  decision  was  clearly  proved  a  few  months  later, 
for  the  florist  had  an  offer  of  a  place  as  superintendent  of  a  ceme- 
tery in  Springfield  on  a  good  salary,  and  told  me  that  he  should 
have  felt  that  he  must  accept  it  and  leave  Hartford,  even  if  I  had 
built  the  greenhouse.  It  must  of  course  be  understood  that  for 
my  statement  of  how  the  lady  was  impressed  and  what  she  did, 
up  to  the  time  when  I  came  in,  I  have  had  to  depend  on  her  own 
and  her  husband's  statements.  I  will  further  state  that  the  mes- 
sage could  have  had  no  other  meaning  or  application  than  the 
one  I  gave  it,  as  there  was  no  other  matter  then  under  considera- 
tion with  me  that  involved  the  raising  of  money  or  the  helping  of 
anybody. 

In  the  financial  crash  of  1875-76  a  firm  of  my  personal  friends 
and  relatives,  who  were  engaged  in  a  large  real  estate  undertak- 
ing failed  most  disastrously.  I  was  holden  as  their  surety  to  a 
large  amount.  Their  real  estate  was  all  mortgaged  to  various 
savings  banks,  and  I  held  a  second  mortgage  for  my  security.  I 
took  the  property  and  struggled  with  the  load  two  or  three  years, 
losing  several  thousand  dollars  more  in  the  attempt,  and  finally 
surrendered  it  all  to  the  mortgagees.  I  found  myself  no  longer 
able  to  hold  my  own  dwelling-house,  and  after  a  long  effort  to 
carry  it,  I  put  it  into  the  hands  of  a  broker  to  sell.  For  three 
years  he  tried  to  sell  it  without  success,  and  there  was  no  way 
but  for  me  to  give  it  up  on  a  heavy  mortgage  which  I  had  some 
time  before  put  upon  it.  The  mortgagee  was  willing  to  take  it, 
as  it  was  well  worth  the  debt,  even  in  the  very  depressed  con- 
dition of  real  estate  at  that  time.  Accordingly  I  prepared  a  deed 
and  executed  it,  and  held  it  ready  to  be  delivered  to  the  mort- 
gagee. It  then  occurred  to  me  that  a  friend  of  mine,  who  had 
no  house,  might  be  willing  to  buy  an  undivided  half  of  the  place 
at  a  low  price,  and  that  we  could  together  carry  it, —  the  house 
being  of  ample  size  for  two  families,  with  extensive  grounds. 
I  proposed  it  to  him.  He  said  it  was  a  generous  offer  and  that 
he  would  talk  with  his  wife  about  it.  My  intimate  friend,  Gov- 
ernor Hubbard.  an  eminent  lawyer,  had  died  a  few  weeks  before 
this.  While  the  matter  so  stood,  a  lady  whom  we  knew  called 
on  me  and  said  that  the  previous  evening  she  had  been  at  a 
stance,  and  that  Governor  Hubbard  announced  himself  and  said, 


SPIRITUA  LISM.  257 

"Tell  John  Hooker  to  let  there  be  no  foreclosure  and  no  divi- 
sion." .She  said  none  of  them  knew  what  it  meant,  but  perhaps 
I  should,  and  that  she  had  brought  it  exactly  as  it  was  uttered. 
I  told  her  I  knew  what  it  meant.  I  decided  to  hold  on  to  the 
property  a  little  longer.  This  was  early  in  April.  Before  the 
ist  of  May  a  stranger  desiring  to  settle  in  Hartford,  found  that 
this  house  was  for  sale,  looked  at  it,  and  bought  it,  giving  all 
that  I  could  have  hoped  to  get  in  the  depressed  condition  of  real 
estate,  but  several  thousand  dollars  more  than  the  mortgage.  I 
cannot  see  how  there  could  have  been  any  mind-reading  here, 
while  there  could  have  been  no  fraud  ;  at  least  there  seems  no 
room  for  any  suspicion  of  it.  It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that 
the  message  speaks  of  a  "  foreclosure,"  while  no  foreclosure  was 
thought  of.  It  was  to  have  been  merely  a  surrender  of  the  prop- 
erty to  the  mortgagee  —  the  result  being  of  course  the  same  as  if 
there  had  been  literally  a  foreclosure,  that  being  the  ordinary 
mode  of  getting  possession  by  a  mortgagee. 

There  resides  in  Hartford  a  middle-aged  woman,  Mrs.  M.,  who 
practices  "magnetic  healing."  During  the  past  ten  or  twelve 
years  we  have  employed  her  many  times  in  our  family  for 
massage  treatment  and  have  come  to  know  her  well,  and  to  have 
great  confidence  in  her  honesty.  She  professes  to  be  controlled 
by  an  Indian  girl  named  Minnie  and  sometimes  by  another 
named  Nicowassa.  Each  of  these  controls  has  peculiarities  of 
speech  (imperfect  and  mispronounced  English),  but  the  language 
of  one  is  at  certain  points  totally  unlike  that  of  the  other.  I 
have  had  many  sittings  with  her,  and  have  watched  carefully 
this  matter  of  speech,  and  am  able  to  state  positively  that  I  have 
never  found  either  trespassing  on  the  other's  preserve  of  inac- 
curacies. And  further,  I  have  never  known  in  a  single  instance 
Mrs.  M.,  when  not  in  a  trance  and  speaking  in  her  own  person, 
falling  into  the  particular  inaccuracies  of  speech  of  either,  and 
while  she  has  some  inaccuracies  of  her  own  I  have  never  known 
her  to  intermingle  them  with  the  words  of  either  control,  at  least 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  noticeable.  Also  when  speaking 
under  control  she  invariably  alludes  to  herself  as  a  third  person 
and  never  says  "  I  "  of  herself.  In  June,  1888, 1  made  my  arrange- 
ments to  go  to  England  for  my  summer  vacation.  Two  ladies, 
one  of  them  a  cousin,  decided  to  go  with  me,  and  finally  two 
young  gentlemen  and  two  more  ladies  —  the  whole  party  making 
seven,  of  whom  I  was  the  only  one  who  had  ever  crossed  the 


258  REMINISCENCES. 

Atlantic,  which  I  had  done  several  times.  All  were  therefore 
dependent  on  me  as  a  manager  and  guide.  Our  passages  were 
taken  and  all  preparations  made.  I  proposed  to  my  wife  to  go 
with  us.  (She  had  before  spent  a  year  and  a  half  in  England  and 
Europe.)  She  said  that  nothing  would  induce  her  to  take  the 
voyage  for  so  short  a  stay,  and  it  was  treated  as  a  settled  thing 
that  she  would  not  think  of  going.  About  a  month  before  we 
were  to  sail  I  had  a  sitting  with  Mrs.  M.,  when  Minnie  said,  "  I  see 
you  and  your  wife  crossing  the  ocean  together."  (Not  a  word 
had  been  said  about  my  going.)  Said  I,  "Oh,  you  are  all  wrong 
there.  I  may  go,  but  my  wife  will  not  think  of  going."  "Yes, 
she  will,"  she  replied;  "she  will  change  her  mind  at  the  last 
moment  and  go."  I  took  this  to  be  a  clear  case  of  blundering,  so 
much  so  that  I  did  not  even  speak  of  it  to  my  wife.  About  three 
weeks  before  we  were  to  sail  my  wife  went  away  from  home  to  be 
gone  about  two  weeks.  Ten  days  before  the  day  for  sailing  I  was 
taken  suddenly  with  dysentery,  and  was  threatened  with  a  serious 
fit  of  it,  with  little  hope  of  getting  up  in  season  to  sail.  My  wife 
was  telegraphed  to  to  hurry  home,  and  came  at  once.  By  good 
medical  and  home  care  I  got  better  rapidly,  but  was  still  in  poor 
condition  for  the  voyage.  We  were  to  leave  home  on  Friday  and 
to  sail  on  Saturday.  On  Wednesday  morning  my  wife  said  :  "  I 
am  going  with  you  ;  you  need  my  care."  I  advised  against  it,  but 
she  was  decided  about  it.  She  sent  immediately  for  a  seamstress 
to  help  get  her  clothing  in  order,  and  by  excessively  hard  pushing 
she  got  ready  and  went  off  with  me  on  Friday  and  took  the  whole 
tour  with  me.  She  had  not  thought  of  going  till  she  woke  on 
Wednesday  morning  with  the  sudden  resolve  to  go. 

In  November,  1889,  I  held  a  note  of  $5,000  which  fell  due 
on  a  Tuesday  of  that  month.  The  maker  had  assured  me  that  it 
would  be  paid,  and  I  had  made  arrangements,  which  I  could  not 
easily  change,  for  the  use  of  the  money.  On  the  Thursday  be- 
fore the  note  fell  due  the  maker  wrote  me  from  New  York, 
where  he  lived,  that  he  found  he  must  renew  for  three  months 
for  $4,000,  paying  now  only  $1,000  and  asking  if  I  could  accom- 
modate him.  The  letter  reached  me  on  Friday.  I  wrote  him  by 
the  Friday  night  mail  that  I  would  do  so  if  he  would  send  a  check 
for  the  $  1,000  by  the  Saturday  evening  mail,  so  that  I  could  have 
it  on  Monday  morning.  Sunday  evening  Mrs.  M.,  the  medium  I 
have  spoken  of,  was  at  my  house,  and  went  into  a  trance  there. 
I  had  not  said  a  word  to  my  wife  about  this  note  matter,  nor  of 
my  expectation  of  the  $1,000  on  Monday.  Mrs.  M.  said:  "Your 


SPIRITUALISM. 


259 


daughter  Mary  is  here  "  (a  daughter  aged  forty,  who  died  in  1886, 
and  who  has  been  to  us  many  times  and  in  a  convincing  way), 
and  she  says  — '  Father,  the  letter  that  will  come  to  you  to-morrow 
will  have  nothing  in  it,  but  what  you  expect  will  come  very 
soon.'  "  No  one  in  the  room  had  any  conception  what  it  meant, 
but  I  told  them  that  I  understood  it  perfectly.  The  postman  the 
next  morning  brought  a  letter  from  the  gentleman  in  New  York, 
expressing  regret  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  get  the  money  in 
season  to  send  me  a  draft  by  that  mail,  but  that  he  would  certainly 
send  it  by  the  next  day's  mail,  and,  in  fact,  he  came  up  himself 
late  Monday  evening  and  brought  me  the  $1,000. 

About  1845,  just  as  I  was  entering  on  my  profession,  I  read 
with  great  interest  a  life  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  a  great  English 
lawyer,  who  lived  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  and  the  early  part 
of  this  century.  My  whole  life  has  been  affected  by  the  person- 
ality of  that  man,  and  when  I  was  in  England  in  1858  I  sought  out 
his  son,  Sir  John  Romilly,  then  Master  of  the  Rolls,  and  had  a 
long  talk  with  him  about  his  father.  I  give  an  account  of  this 
interview  ante,  p.  70.  I  never  saw  Sir  John  again,  and  did  not 
suppose  that  he  ever  again  thought  of  me.  He  died  a  few  years 
later.  Not  long  after  his  death,  I  was,  with  my  wife,  spending  a 
few  days  at  Rev.  Dr.  Edward  Beecher's  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  He 
and  Mrs.  Beecher  were  at  that  time  much  interested  in  looking 
into  spiritualistic  phenomena.  One  evening  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Beecher 
and  my  wife  and  I  went  together  to  a  very  respectable  lady  living 
not  far  off,  who  was  a  medium,  and  in  whose  trustworthiness  they 
seemed  to  have  confidence.  Various  interesting  things  occurred, 
but  I  will  notice  only  one  incident.  The  medium  addressed  me 
and  said  (some  spirit  seeming  to  try  to  speak  through  her)  —  "  Sir 
John  "  —"Sir  John."  I  could  not  imagine  who  it  could  be,  till 
my  wife  (unfortunately  for  the  completeness  of  the  test),  said, 
"  Isn't  it  your  friend  Romilly  ?  "  The  name  had  not  come  into  my 
mind  till  then.  I  then  said,  "Is  it  Sir  John  Romilly?"  The 
medium  at  once  reached  out  her  hand  to  take  mine  and  seemed 
to  answer  to  that  name.  I  took  the  hand,  shaking  it  rather  for- 
mally than  cordially,  and  said,  "lam  very  happy  to  meet  you, 
Sir  John."  The  medium  then  said  (personating  him),  "I  am 
happy  to  meet  you,  but  I  came  specially  to  introduce  to  you  my 
father,  Sir  Samuel."  He  then  (that  is,  the  medium)  made  mo- 
tions as  if  introducing  somebody,  and  then  the  medium  (now 
representing  Sir  Samuel)  took  my  hand  and  gave  it  a  dignified 


260  REMINISCENCES. 

shake,  and  said,  "  I  am  happy  to  meet  you "  (or  substantially 
that),  and  this  was  all  that  was  done.  Something  else  came  along 
and  took  the  attention  of  the  medium. 

I  could  fill  many  pages  more  with  similar  cases,  but  these 
are  all  for  which  I  have  room.  I  will,  however,  append  an 
article  sent  by  me  to  the  Grand  Rapids  (Mich.)  Eagle,  in  1887, 
in  reply  to  an  article  against  spiritualism  by  Rev.  Dr.  C.  B. 
Smith  published  in  that  paper: 

The  Rev.  Dr.  C.  B.  Smith,  a  classmate  of  the  writer  at  Yale,  in 
a  recent  article  in  your  paper  on  Spiritualism,  noticed  an  address 
delivered  by  me  on  that  subject  before  a  society  of  spiritualists, 
and,  while  dissenting  wholly  from  my  conclusions,  speaks  most 
kindly  and  commendingly  of  me  personally.  It  will  be  impos- 
sible, in  any  such  space  as  you  would  allow  me,  to  answer  the 
points  made  by  him,  especially  that  with  regard  to  the  unsatis- 
factory character  of  the  proof  relied  on  to  establish  the  claimed 
facts  of  Spiritualism.  I  will,  however,  present  briefly  two  or 
three  points  which  I  .think  worthy  of  consideration. 

i.  While  it  would  be  in  bad  taste  for  me  to  quote  Dr.  Smith's 
words  of  commendation  of  myself  for  any  mere  personal  reason, 
yet  as  I  am  totally  unknown  in  your  part  of  the  country,  while  he 
is  so  widely  and  favorably  known,  I  owe  it  to  the  cause  I  repre- 
sent to  put  considerations  of  mere  delicacy  aside  and  to  avail  my- 
self of  the  generous  certificate  he  has  given  me.  He  says  :  "  Mr. 
Hooker  has  no  superior  among  his  classmates  as  a  thinker  and  a 
scholar.  His  mind  is  clear,  keen,  logical,  and  strong.  .  .  .  He 
is  a  lawyer  of  great  ability.  .  .  .  There  is  no  cant  or  humbug 
in  him,  and  he  is  the  last  man  we  should  suppose  could  be  carried 
away  by  a  delusion."  Now,  is  it  likely  that,  being  such  a  man, 
and  having  had  nearly  fifty  years'  experience  in  applying  evidence 
to  facts,  I  should  wholly  lose  my  head  in  dealing  with  the  ques- 
tion of  Spiritualism  ?  Let  it  be  observed  that  it  is  purely  a  ques- 
tion of  fact  and  evidence.  If  I  am  claiming  too  much  for  myself, 
let  me  refer  to  another  classmate,  Professor  Lyman  of  Yale  Col- 
lege, to  whom  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  for  November  devotes 
a  whole  article,  ranking  him  among  the  first  scientists  of  the 
country,  and  who  has  been  for  years  a  full  believer  in  Spiritualism. 
He  is,  besides,  a  Congregational  clergyman,  and  an  earnest 
religious  man.  There  are,  in  fact,  no  more  scientific  men  in  the 
world  than  those  who  have,  upon  full  investigation,  become 


SPIRITUALISM.  261 

believers  in  and  advocates  of  Spiritualism.  William  Crookes  and 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace  are  at  the  head  of  the  English  scientists, 
and  both,  beginning  in  unbelief,  carried  on  investigations  which 
have  never  been  surpassed  for  thoroughness,  and  became  believ- 
ers, and  have  published  books  in  its  defense. 

2.  My  friend  makes  a  point  of  the  triviality  of  some  of  the 
phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  and  the  low  tone  of  the  communica- 
tions. "The  gabble  of  fools,"  he  calls  it,  and  asks  "if  dying 
makes  men  fools."  His  assumption  that  everything  that  purports 
to  come  from  the  other  side  is  low,  or  even  commonplace,  is 
utterly  unwarranted.  I  have  never  heard  or  read  anything  more 
elevated  in  thought  or  finer  in  expression  than  I  have  heard  from 
what  I  believe  to  have  been  disembodied  spirits,  and  that  through 
mediums  who  were  unable  in  themselves  to  conceive  the  thoughts 
or  use  the  language.  But  a  great  deal  that  is  said  is  undoubtedly 
commonplace  and  trivial.  What  else  ought  we  to  expect  from  the 
very  commonplace  people  who  make  the  great  majority  of  those 
who  go  over  ?  We  too  often  have  the  impression  that  there  is  in 
that  world  such  a  perpetual  pressure  of  the  sublime  and  awful  as 
to  expel  from  the  mind  all  thoughts  but  solemn  ones.  But  that 
world,  I  believe,  is  only  another  stage  of  existence,  higher  than 
this,  but,  like  this,  full  of  social  life  and  all  that  enlivens 
social  life  here.  In  such  circumstances  triflers  would  still  trifle, 
the  ignorant  would  still  show  their  ignorance,  and  the  ascents  to  a 
higher  level  of  thought  and  expression  would  be  the  exception. 
It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  too,  that  these  communications  are  gen- 
erally the  talk  of  friends  with  friends  in  a  familiar  way,  and  that 
they  are  not  addressing  the  public,  or  posturing  for  observation 
or  criticism.  But  let  us  compare  these  undignified  acts  of  these 
commonplace  souls  with  a  certain  other  accepted  manifestation 
from  the  spirit  world,  which  the  church  has  never  thought  of 
criticising.  We  are  told  in  the  New  Testament  that  Christ  after 
his  crucifixion  came  back  to  earth  as  a  materialized  form,  and 
that  on  one  occasion,  when  several  of  the  disciples  had  been  toil- 
ing all  night  at  their  nets,  they  saw  him,  as  the  morning  broke, 
standing  upon  the  shore,  where  he  had  made  a  fire  of  coals 
and  was  broiling  some  fishes.  And  this,  in  the  contemplation  of 
the  church,  was  the  Lord  of  Glory,  who  had  just  completed  his 
sublime  sacrificial  work,  and  had  visited  the  heavenly  world,  the 
radiance  of  which,  to  him  its  Lord,  no  human  imagination  can 
conceive  ;  and  yet  he  comes  back  to  earth  and  is  seen  broiling 
some  fishes.  If  this  had  not  appeared  in  Holy  Writ,  but  in  some 


262  REMINISCENCES. 

apocryphal  record  of  the  time,  or  had  been  revealed  through 
some  mediumistic  agency,  the  whole  Christian  church  would 
have  scouted  it  as  absurd  to  the  last  degree,  and  the  Seybert  Com- 
mission would  have  thought  it  too  contemptible  for  one  moment's 
attention.  Yet  when  we  consider  the  loftiness  of  Christ's  char- 
acter and  the  low  level  of  ordinary  human  life,  I  am  sure  there 
cannot  be  found  an  act  of  a  human  disembodied  spirit  that  can 
justly  be  compared  to  this  for  'want  of  probability  or  want  of 
dignity  ! 

3.  My  friend  thinks  it  ridiculous  that  spirits  should  make 
known  their  presence  by  raps  and  other  physical  means.  But  for 
those  who  know  nothing  about  how  spirits  can  communicate  with 
mortals,  it  is  very  unscientific  to  say  beforehand  that  it  cannot  be 
in  this  particular  way.  It  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  say  that  by 
these  modes  there  have  come  communications  which  could  not 
have  come  from  any  other  than  intelligent  minds.  The  evidence 
on  this  subject  is  absolutely  conclusive.  It  cannot  be  gone  into 
here.  But  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  if  any  intelligent  and 
honest-minded  man  could  see  what  I  have  seen,  he  would  inevi- 
tably come  to  my  conclusions.  I  started  upon  my  investigations 
in  utter  disbelief  and  with  a  great  disrelish  for  the  whole  subject. 
My  friend  says  of  the  investigators  who  have  been  convinced, 
"  They  desire  to  have  it  true,  and  there  is  only  a  short  step 
between  that  desire  and  truth."  The  fact  with  the  most  intelli- 
gent investigators  is  exactly  the  opposite.  I  did  not  desire  it  to 
be  true.  I  thought  it  a  delusion,  and  set  out  to  prove  it  to  be  so. 
And  after  my  investigation  began  I  held  on  for  a  long  time  to  the 
theory  that  all  of  the  phenomena  could  be  explained  by  mind- 
reading  ;  and  it  was  not  until  facts  compelled  me  to  give  up  this 
theory  or  confess  myself  a  dishonest  man,  that  I  yielded  to  the 
inexorable  fact. 

My  friend  speaks  confidently  and  with  an  apparently  certain 
knowledge  about  what  is  and  is  not  in  this  matter/  I  cannot  say 
how  much  careful  and  candid  examination  he  has  given  to  it  (I 
have  given  a  great  deal)  ;  but  I  can  say  without  hesitation  that  I 
have  almost  invariably  found  that  those  who  were  most  positive 
in  their  rejection  of  Spiritualism  have  been  those  who  have  never 
given  it  any  serious  and  unprejudiced  examination.  I  cannot  do 
better  than  to  quote  a  few  words  from  Alfred  Russel  Wallace, 
whom  one  of  our  religious  papers  speaks  of  as  "  a  man  in  whom 
the  candor  of  the  scientific  method  is  conspicuously  illustrated." 


SPIRITUALISM.  263 

In  a  recent  article  in  an  English  journal  he  speaks  of  the  subject 
as  follows  : 

"  The  fact  that  Spiritualism  has  firmly  established  itself  in  our 
skeptical  and  materialistic  age  ;  that  it  has  continuously  grown 
and  developed  for  nearly  forty  years  ;  that  by  mere  weight  of 
evidence,  and  in  spite  of  the  most  powerful  prepossessions,  it  has 
compelled  recognition  by  an  ever-increasing  body  of  men  in  all 
classes  of  society,  and  has  gained  adherents  in  the  highest  ranks 
of  science  and  philosophy ;  and  finally,  that  despite  abuse  and 
misrepresentation,  the  folly  of  enthusiasts  and  the  knavery  of 
imposters,  it  has  rarely  failed  to  convince  those  who  have  made  a 
thorough  and  painstaking  investigation,  and  has  never  lost  a  con- 
vert thus  made  —  all  this  affords  a  conclusive  answer  to  the  objec- 
tions so  commonly  uged  against  it." 

I  have  thus  far  dealt  only  with  the  evidence  of  the  reality 
of  spiritualism  and  of  the  soundness  of  the  inference  in  its  favor 
from  its  phenomena.  A  question  of  great  importance  re- 
mains with  regard  to  its  moral  relations.  The  argument  here 
is  strongly  in  its  favor.  I  cannot  present  the  point  better  than 
by  a  brief  and  forcible  article  written  by  my  wife  in  1897  for 
the  "  Banner  of  Light,"  a  spiritualist  paper  published  in  Bos- 
ton. The  article,  which  is  entitled  "  Spiritualism  and  Good 
Morals,"  is  as  follows : — 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  code  of  morals  under  Spiritualism 
is  a  loose  one,  and  that  it  gives  a  free  rein  to  unbridled  fancies, 
leading  to  domestic  separations  and  disorders.  No  one  can  abhor 
loose  morals  more  than  I,  and  it  would  disturb  me  greatly  if 
Spiritualism  was  open  to  such  a  charge. 

But  I  have  studied  it  most  carefully  for  over  twenty  years,  and 
have  long  been  convinced  that,  rightly  understood,  it  goes  far 
beyond  the  ordinary  sanctions  of  what  we  call  "  Orthodox  Chris- 
tianity "  as  a  deterrent  from  vice  and  an  encouragement  of  all 
that  is  good.  The  hell  that  has  been  held  up  as  a  terror  to  evil- 
doers, and  than  which  nothing  could  be  more  terrible  if  it  com- 
manded the  belief  of  the  mind,  has  yet  stood  before  us,  even  those 
of  us  who  most  believed  in  it,  as  something  vague  and  remote  and 
unreal.  It  has  practically  no  power  as  a  deterrent  from  wrong- 
doing. But  there  is  something  terribly  impressive  and  real  in 
what  we  hear  from  those  who  have  gone  to  the  other  world  from 
a  life  of  sin  and  wrong  in  this.  They  have  told  us  that  they  are 


264 


REMINISCENCES. 


in  darkness  and  desolation.  One  who  had  acquired  great  wealth, 
but  who  had  never  opened  his  hand  to  help  the  needy  or  to  aid 
the  moral  efforts  of  others,  said  to  me,  months  after  his  death, 
that  he  had  found  no  rest,  but  was  blown  about  over  a  dark  and 
desolate  region,  like  a  wisp  of  hay.  Another,  who  inherited  a 
large  fortune,  but  had  been  overbearing  and  exacting  in  his  deal- 
ings, and  had  done  nothing  for  the  needy,  came  to  my  husband 
most  unexpectedly  in  a  sitting  at  which  I  was  present  (an  occur- 
rence that  was  remarkable,  as  they  had  barely  known  each  other 
by  sight),  and,  giving  his  name,  said  :  "  Those  who  have  not  used 
their  wealth  for  humanity  in  earth-life  have  no  wealth  in  spirit- 
life.  They  are  as  poor  as  those  whom  they  have  neglected  to 
help  on  earth.  With  my'great  wealth  I  neglected  to  help  suffer- 
ing humanity.  I  am  very  unhappy  over  it.  I  can  see  no  way  to 
undo  the  past,  but  I  will  do  all  the  spirit-world  will  give  me  power 
to  do.  It  is  a  dreadful  thing  to  come  into  the  spirit-world  without 
one  friend  to  say  '  well  done.'  " 

At  another  sitting  with  the  same  medium,  at  which  my  hus- 
band was  present,  an  old  gentleman  of  great  wealth  who  had 
died  a  few  months  before,  gave  his  name  and  said  :  "  Oh  !  help  me 
to  the  light.  I  never  lifted  a  finger  for  humanity.  I  had  a  pleas- 
ant home,  but  not  even  a  poor  cabin  now.  I  am  in  the  dark.  As 
I  crushed  humanity,  so  I  am  crushed.  My  ear  was  deaf  to 
humanity,  and  now  God  is  deaf  to  me.  I  come  to  you  to  learn. 
Help  me  to  the  light."  At  another  sitting  the  same  person  came 
again  and  said :  ' '  Oh  !  how  I  regret  that  dreadful  past.  I  wish  I 
could  come  back,  and  open  my  doors,  and  say,  '  You  poor  afflicted 
ones,  come  and  help  yourselves.'  What  a  blessing  it  would  be  to 
me.  How  these  bonds  would  be  broken  !  To  come  to  you  brings 
me  the  only  light  I  have  had  since  I  have  been  in  the  spirit- 
world.  " 

Can  there  be  more  awful  sanctions  than  these  to  bind  a  man 
to  right  doing  while  he  is  in  earth  life  ?  I  know  nothing  in  the 
orthodox  penalties  that  in  practical  effect  will  compare  with  them. 

But  there  is  one  very  comforting  fact  that  we  learn  from 
Spiritualism.  It  is  that  the  suffering  in  the  spirit-world  is  reform- 
atory, and  not  everlasting ;  that  erring  and  perverse  souls,  when 
they  have  suffered  for  a  time,  perhaps  for  years,  and  have  come 
to  see  and  feel  ashamed  of  their  evil-doing,  repent,  and  are  up- 
lifted and  forgiven,  good  spirits  helping  them  to  find  the  way  to 
the  light.  And  from  frequent  expressions  of  these  spirits,  as  in 
the  last  case  mentioned,  they  get  great  help  from  coming  to  us 


SOME   BITS  OF   VERSE.  26$ 

for  sympathy  and  encouragement.  The  one  task  given  to  them 
all  is  to  come  back  here,  and  try  to  influence  others  to  do  better 
than  they  have  done. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  that  the  cases  I  have  mentioned  are 
recent  ones.  They  are  taken  from  a  great  many  that  have  come 
to  me  in  the  last  twenty  years. 


SOME  BITS  OF  VERSE.' 

With  considerable  hesitation  I  decide  to  make  up  a  chapter 
of  what  I  call  "  Bits  of  Verse."  I  do  not  pretend  to  be  a  poet. 
From  my  youth  I  have  been  accustomed  at  dinner  parties  and 
on  other  festive  occasions,  frequently  to  weave  together  lines 
which  were  intended  to  be  humorous,  and  which  generally 
proved  entertaining  in  the  hilarious  and  uncritical  mood  of  the 
company,  and  thus  I  acquired  a  not  uncommon  faculty  of 
rather  easy  versification;  but  this  faculty  I  almost  never  used 
for  any  serious  purpose  till  after  I  was  fifty  years  old.  The  few 
poems  which  I  shall  here  publish  were  all  written  after  I  reached 
that  age.  Their  publication  here  gives  me  the  opportunity  to 
express  not  only  my  great  desire,  but  my  earnest  request  to  my 
family,  that  nothing  else  in  the  guise  of  poetry  that  may  be 
found  among  my  papers  shall  ever  be  published.  Two  poems 
of  serious  intent  have  already  been  printed  in  former  chapters, 
pages  62  and  112.  I  might  greatly  enlarge  this  collection,  but 
it  is  with  me  a  matter  both  of  preference  and  of  wisdom  to  keep 
it  small.  I  commit  to  the  charity  of  my  friends  what  follows. 


THE  BELL  TOLLED  BY  THE  WAVES. 

Far  down  the  bay,  where  pass  the  stately  ships 
That  come  and  go,  a  spar,  with  deep-toned  bell, 
Uprises  from  the  waves,  fastened  beneath 
To  a  huge  rock  that  lurks  in  ambush  there. 
Waiting  to  gore  to  death  some  gallant  ship. 
The  waves,  confederate  and  ravenous, 
Are  yet  compelled  to  toll  that  warning  bell, 
And  mingle  with  their  own  perpetual  moan 
Its  dirge-like  monotone,  that  cheats  their  greed. 

18 


266  REMINISCENCES. 

So  walk  our  streets  blear-eyed  and  sin-scarred  men, 
Bearing  unwilling  on  their  visages, 
As  if  in  endless  moan  and  monotone, 
Warning  of  ambushed  death. 

TIDES. 

Constant  the  great  tides  come  and  go, 
Obedient  to  the  Queen  of  Night; 

Lord  !  may  my  heart's  tides  ebb  and  flow 
For  thee,  the  Lord  of  Light. 

Earth's  gravitation  all  forgot, 
They  heed  alone  the  heavenly  call; 

Lord  !  may  my  heart  give  earth  no  thought 
But  hold  thy  mandate  all. 

Dark  storm  clouds  hide  at  times  the  moon, 
Or  she  is  paled  by  light  of  day  ; 

In  storm  and  calm,  by  night  and  noon, 
The  great  tides  still  obey. 

Lord,  thou  dost  oft  in  darkness  hide, 
And  give  my  anxious  heart  no  sign; 

Help  me  to  still  in  thee  abide, 
And  know  no  law  but  thine. 


WAIT. 

My  friend  in  the  spirit  land, 
With  whom  I,  hand  in  hand, 
Have  walked  so  oft  on  earth, 
And  till  thy  great  new  birth; 
With  whom,  as  we  sat  or  walked, 
Of  deepest  things  I  talked, 
And  of  the  mysteries  vast 
That  we  should  know  at  last; 
Awful  and  vaguely  told, 
Yet  should  one  day  behold; 
Thou  hast  beheld  them  now, 
Their  light  is  on  thy  brow; 
No  longer  a  veil  between 
Thine  eyes  and  the  once  unseen; 
No  longer  from  thee  concealed 
The  awful  and  unrevealed; 


SOME  BITS  OF   VERSE.  26/ 

In  the  shadow  still  I  stand, 
But  thou  in  the  sunlit  land. 
Oh,  tell  to  my  longing  ear 
Of  thy  life  in  that  new  sphere  ! 
Oh,  tell  to  my  longing  heart 
Where,  near  or  far,  thou  art  ! 
What  are  seeing  those  eyes  of  thin*; 
That  so  lately  looked  in  mine  ? 
What  is  hearing  thy  ravished  ear 
That  so  lately  listened  here  ? 
Oh,  lips  that  so  lovingly  spake, 
Can  ye  not  the  silence  break  ? 
Cannot  the  immortal  breath 
Whisper  the  secret  of  death  ? 

Thou  knowest  my  hunger  and  tH*  «• 
How  I  could  almost  burst 
Into  that  unknown  land, 
Nor  wait  the  Lord's  command. 
Thou  knowest  how  here  our  breatr 
Seems  but  a  lingering  death; 
And  how  my  sad  heart  ponders 
Ever  upon  those  wonders — 
Ever  on  the  end  of  earth 
And  the  wondrous  spirit  birth. 

Oh,  wondrous  birth  and  life  ! 
Calmness  succeeding  strife  ; 
Joy  in  the  place  of  sorrow 
And  forebodings  of  the  morrow  ; 
There,  the  Eternal  Presence, 
Here,  constant  evanescence  ; 
There,  rest  in  full  assurance, 
Here,  pain  and  mere  endurance  ; 
There,  the  exultant  shouting, 
Here,  the  fearing  and  the  doubting  ; 
There,  sure  and  blest  abodes, 
Here,  wandering  on  rough  roads  ; 
There,  mighty  organ  swells, 
Here,  constant  tolling  bells. 
Oh,  rest  of  that  land  of  bliss  ! 
Oh,  weariness  of  this  ! 

And  canst  thou  not,  my  friend, 
Some  of  thy  new  light  lend 


268  REMINISCENCES. 

To  one  who  loves  thee  so, 
Yet  waits  and  longs  below  ? 
Canst  thou  not  feed  his  yearning 
With  something  thou  art  learning  ? 
Some  hint  of  the  life  divine, 
Some  unmistaken  sign  ? 

I  watch  with  my  every  sense  ; 
I  listen  with  soul  intense  ; 
But  not  a  whisper  comes, 
And  a  chill  my  soul  benumbs. 

But  out  of  the  sky  at  last 

A  word  on  the  void  is  cast  ; 

On  the  void  a  single  word, 

But  it  comes  as  that  of  the  Lord  ; 

As  I  harken,  my  breath  I  bate, 

But  that  word  is  only  —  "  Wait."  * 

THE  DEATH   OP  GRANT. 

Our  victor,  vanquished  by  th'  all-conqueror, 
Lies  dead  ;    clad  was  our  hero  but  in  clay. 
The  strong  right  hand  that  held  the  avalanche 
Of  battle,  as  th'  Almighty  holds  the  tempests, 
Lies  powerless,  and  the  arms  that  clasping  held 
A  nation  to  his  heart,  are  folden  now 
Upon  his  heaveless  breast. 

THE  EMPIRE  THAT  IS  TO  BE. 

I  once  in  sad  and  thoughtful  mood 
Stood  in  an  old  world  solitude, 
Amidst  the  scattered  ruins  vast 
Of  a  great  empire  of  the  past. 

But  now,  with  feeling  more  intense, 
I  watch  the  gathering  elements 
Of  a  grand  empire  yet  to  be, 
World-clasping  in  immensity. 
That  empire  shall  be  Love  and  Peace  ; 
Its  sway  begun  shall  never  cease  ; 


*  I  have  become  entirely  satisfied  since  the  above  was  written,  that  we  can  have 
actual  communication  with  our  friends  in  the  spirit  world. 


SOME  BITS  OF   VERSE.  269 

No  drumbeats  shall  its  morns  salute, 

No  trumpets  shall  their  clangor  bruit  ; 

But,  following  the  circling  sun, 

Each  day  shall  be  with  song  begun  ; 

A  song  of  praise,  oh  God,  to  thee  ; 

A  song  that  shall  unbroken  be, 

Save  by  the  deep-toned  anthem  of  the  sea. 


AT  THE  PIANO. 

[Verses  written  for  a  young  lady  friend  who  had  come  out  from  a  crushing  dis- 
appointment into  a  great  and  abiding  peace.] 

Before  these  keys  responsive  to  my  moods 
I  sit,  my  fingers  wandering  at  their  will, 
Singing  in  low  voice  sweet  beatitudes, 
And  of  the  peace  and  joy  my  heart  that  fill. 

Five  years  agone  this  night  here  sat  I  singing 
Of  an  awaiting  joy  that  filled  my  dreams  : 
The  bright  sun  of  my  morning  then  was  flinging 
Across  my  untrod  path  his  golden  beams. 

But  ah,  between  !  what  tumult,  oh  my  soul  ! 
Oh  God,  what  cries  of  agony  to  thee  ! 
Thou,  Christ,  hast  felt  of  human  woes  the  whole; 
My  heart  has  shared  thine  own  Gethsemane. 

Yet  self  I  conquered  ;    for  thy  grace  drew  near, 
And  taught  me  sorrow  was  a  gift  divine  ; 
I  trod  the  wine-press  of  that  vintage  drear, 
But  drank  at  last  its  eucharistic  wine. 

And  so  I  sit  to-night  in  a  great  peace, 
Touching  these  keys,  and  singing  soft  and  low 
Of  a  calm  joy  that  cannot  know  surcease. 
Richer  than  all  I  dreamed  five  years  ago. 


TRUTH   AND  DOGMA. 

An  outworn  Dogma  died.     Around  its  bed 
Its  votaries  wept  as  if  all  truth  were  dead. 
But  heaven-born  Truth  is  an  immortal  thing; 
Hark;  how  its  lieges  give  it  welcoming, 
"  The  King  is  dead  —  LONG  LIVE  THE  KING." 


2/0  REMINISCENCES. 

THE  MODERN   SPHINX. 
"He  is  of  age;  ask  him."  JOHN  g,  21. 

Woman,  Sphinx  of  the  secret  yet  unspoken, 
On  human  wastes  outlooking  sad  and  dumb, 
At  last  on  Memnon's  top  the  morn  has  broken, 
And  Memnon's  voice  proclaims  her  day  has  come. 

And  now,  her  long,  mute,  weary  non-age  o'er, 
She  calmly  sits  her  own  interpreter  ; 
If  we  would  have  her  riddle  solved,  no  more 
Of  our  rude  guesses.     SHE'S  OF  AGE;  ASK  HER. 


WATER  CHANGED  TO   WINE. 

The  Lord  said,  Bring  me  wine  ;   my  scanty  stoie 

Alas  had  none  that  I  could  bring. 
I  brought  but  water,  I  could  do  no  more, 
From  a  cool  spring. 

And  hardly  dared  I  to  the  Lord  look  up, 
So  worthless  seemed  this  gift  of  mine  ; 
When,  lo,  the  water  in  my  humble  cup 
Had  turned  to  wine. 


ALONE   WITH  THEE. 
"  Come  ye  apart  into  a  desert  place  and  rest."    MARK  6,  31. 

LOPD,  help  me,  from  the  strife  and  whirl  and  din 
Of  life,  to  go  apart  awhile  with  thee  ; 

E'en  though  it  be  a  desert's  depths  within, 
It  will  be  sweetest  rest  to  me. 

My  heart  is  weary  of  men's  sateless  greed 

For  wealth  ;  of  power  that  plays  the  tyrant's  part 

Of  bigotry,  with  its  dead  forms  and  creed, 
And  fire  and  fagot  in  its  heart. 

I  weary  of  blind  prejudice,  whose  hate 

Would  battle  with  advancing  truth  and  right  ; 

Loving  the  lark's  song  at  the  morning's  gate 
Less  than  the  hootings  of  the  night. 


SOME  BITS  OF   VERSE.  27 1 

But  most  I  weary  of  myself  ;  my  ways 

Of  ill,  on  better  purpose  following  ever  ; 
My  vows  so  often  broken  ;  my  to-day's 

Resolve,  to-morrow's  weak  endeavor. 

So  let  me  flee  into  a  desert  place, 

Where  I  can  be  apart  from  all  but  thee  ; 
Where  on  my  troubled  brow  thy  placid  face 

May  look,  and  give  its  peace  to  me. 

That  desert  place — be  it  of  thine  own  choosing  ; 

The  path  that  leads  there  may  be  steep  and  rough 
And  dark  ;  but  I  the  way  shall  not  fear  losing  ; 

Thy  leading  hand  will  be  enough. 

Through  whatsoe'er  of  trial  thou  see'st  best 

I  will  with  gladness  go  to  that  lone  place, 
Where,  all  the  world  shut  out,  I  shall  find  rest, 

Gazing  in  rapture  on  thy  face. 


I  shall  add  a  very  few  of  my  humorous  poems.  If  all  that  I 
have  written  could  be  brought  together,  they  would  make  a 
considerable  volume.  A  few  have  already  been  given  in  this 
volume,  at  pages  36,  43,  90,  103,  and  104.  Verses  of  this 
character,  however,  are  generally  written  for  some  special 
occasion,  and  often  all  their  point  lies  in  some  happy  personal 
allusion,  making  their  publication  out  of  the  question,  and  they 
lose  much  of  their  interest  where  taken  out  of  all  their  sur- 
roundings and  especially  presented  in  cold  type.  I  will  add 
a  single  word  of  explanation  of  one  of  the  poems,  entitled 
an  "  Elegy  on  Departed  Worth."  Some  ten  or  fifteen  years 
before  this  was  written  I  saw  and  preserved  a  bright  little 
poem  on  the  death  of  a  favorite  horse.  The  subject  remained 
in  my  mind,  but  I  had  not  seen  the  lines  since  I  first  came 
across  them,  and  had  totally  forgotten  the  details.  One  night, 
in  1891,  I  had  one  of  my  not  infrequent  turns  of  wakefulness, 
and  in  casting  about  for  matter  to  amuse  myself,  I  thought  of 
these  lines,  and  at  once  began  to  compose  verses  on  the  same 
subject.  I  was  so  entertained  by  my  work  that  when  morning 
came  I  could  not  stop  to  dress,  but  threw  a  blanket  over  my 


272  REMINISCENCES. 

shoulders  and  finished  the  poem  in  season  to  read  it  at  the 
breakfast  table,  where  it  was  received  with  great  favor.  It 
then  occurred  to  me  to  look  up  the  old  poem  to  see  whether  I 
had  not  unwittingly  appropriated  some  of  its  puns.  I  found 
that  my  best  verse,  which  I  thought  absolutely  original, 
trenched  seriously  on  the  other  poem,  and  I  struck  it  out 
entirely.  No  other  verse  was  open  to  objection,  and  I  at  once 
made  a  final  draft  of  the  poem  for  preservation.  I  give  here  a 
very  small  representation  of  verses  that  have  been  most  warmly 
received  at  dinner  parties  and  gatherings  of  my  friends. 

A  GOOD  THING  DONE  BY  A  PLUMBER. 

[The  public  has  so  often  allowed  itself  to  be  amused  by  heartless  gibes  at  our 
worthy  plumbers,  that  where  one  of  them  does  a  really  good  thing,  as  in  the  present 
case,-he  ought  to  have  the  credit  of  it.] 

The  pipes  of  the  palace  got  leaky, 

And  the  king  for  a  plumber  sent  ; 
The  plumber  was  smart  and  cheeky, 

And  with  ominous  smile  he  went. 

For  a  year  kept  plumbing  that  plumber, 

And  perhaps  he  is  plumbing  still  ; 
But  you  never  saw  a  man  dumber 

Than  the  king  when  he  saw  his  bill. 

The  king  was  in  deadly  strife 

With  another  king  near  by, 
At  a  dreadful  cost  of  life 

And  drain  on  his  treasury. 

But  he  forthwith  stopt  that  war  ; 

T'was  the  best  thing  he  could  do  ; 
For  he  couldn't  raise  money  for 

The  war  and  the  plumber  too. 

AN  HONEST  BUT  SHREWD  COBBLER. 
[Showing  that  the  best  policy  does  not  conflict  with  honesty.] 

An  honest  cobbler  had  twelve  girls, 
With  plump  red  cheeks  and  redder  curls  ; 
But  not  a  boy,  poor  man,  had  he 
To  help  him  in  his  cobblerie. 


SOME  BITS  OF   VERSE. 

Early  lie  worked  and  he  worked  late 
To  feed  these  girls,  (and  how  they  ate  !) 
The  elder  had  become  passees, 
The  younger  were  well  on  the  way  ; 
But  still,  no  beaux  his  threshold  crossed, 
No  billets-doux  were  brought  by  post  ; 
Yet  none  of  these  continued  slights 
Seemed  to  affect  their  appetites. 
The  cobbler  still  worked  early,  late 
And  still  the  twelve  girls  ate  and  ate. 
He  o'er  the  problem  worried  sore, 
And  Mrs.  Cobbler  even  more. 
But  our  poor  man  had  Yankee  shrewdness, 
And  was  not  made  of  simple  goodness; 
Long  time  he  schemed,  and  then  at  last 
Away  his  awl  and  apron  cast, 
And  moved  off  to  another  place, 
Where  no  one  knew  his  trade  or  face, 
And  there  set  up  a  shop  as  Plumber. 

Young  men  touched  hats  to  the  new-comer, 
And  all  the  girls  were  married  the  first  summer. 

Our  cobbler  then,  with  Mrs.  C, 
Rubbing  his  hands  in  honest  glee, 
Moved  back  to  his  old  home  and  cobblerie. 


TO  MY  WOODBINE  IN  OCTOBER. 

Thou  pretty  woodbine,  fondly  clinging 
About  my  porch,  what  now  is  bringing 
To  thy  soft  cheek  such  blushes  scarlet  ? 
A  kiss  snatched  rudely  by  some  varlet  ? 
Or  has  true  love  with  winning  art 
Found  entrance  to  thy  tender  heart  ? 
Surely,  thy  blush  is  not  of  shame  ; 
No  scandal  can  have  touched  thy  name. 
E'en  as  I  ask,  the  warm  blood  rushes 
To  fill  thy  cheek  with  deeper  blushes. 
Ah,  pretty  vine,  in  love  thou  art  ; 
Tell  me  the  secret  of  thy  heart. 


273 


274 


REMINISCENCES. 

Thy  secret  thou  wilt  never  tell  ? 

But  I  have  watched  and  know  it  well. 

I've  watched,  and  seen  too  oft  of  late 

An  evening  loafer  'round  my  gate  ; 

And  know  thou'st  been,  to  thy  heart's  cost, 

A-chatting  nights  with  gay  Jack  Frost. 


ELEGY  ON    DEPARTED   WORTH. 

Old  Prince  is  dead,  that  good  old  steed 

Of  sheer  old  age  died  he; 
Four  sturdy  legs  he  had,  yet  now 

But  this  poor  leg* 

Where'er  the  path  of  duty  led 

Faithful  he  followed  it  ; 
To  hard  or  humble  service  called, 

He  never  shirked  a  bit. 

His  courage  never  failed  at  drum, 
Or  march  of  bannered  host  ; 

When  in  the  street  securely  tied 
He  never  left  his  post. 

He  loved  fair  woman's  gentle  rein; 

His  mistress  was  his  idol  ; 
Yet,  though  no  Mormon,  forth  he  came 
Each  morning  to  a  bridle. 

No  need  of  harsh  command  or  blow, 

A  mild  word  was  enough  ; 
And  so,  though  he  a  collar  wore, 

He  never  had  a  cuff. 

Though  of  finance  he  nothing  knew, 
Nor  bankers'  methods  noticed, 

He  always  traveled  with  a  check, 
Though  always  under  protest. 

His  life  was  far  beyond  reproach, 

But  gossips  never  fail  ; 
And  always,  whereso'er  he  went, 

There  followed  him  a  tail. 


SOME  BITS  OF   VERSE.  27$ 

But  all  such  things  disturbed  him  not, 

He  took  them  as  a  part 
Of  life's  sure  ills,  and  through  them  all 

He  kept  a  stable  heart. 

Though  of  best  temper  and  sincere, 

He  had  a  funny  way, 
Whate'er  you  kindly  said  to  him, 

Of  answering  with  a  neigh. 

But  when  grim  death  upon  him  called, 

And  beckoned  him  away 
His  eyes  half  closed,  he  was  too  weak 

To  answer  with  a  neigh. 

In  his  gay  youth  he  loved  the  turf  ; 

Beneath  the  turf  he  lies  ; 
And  o'er  him  waves  the  grass,  as  in 

A  good  steed's  paradise. 

Though  vanished  from  our  mortal  sight, 

Mere  vision  of  the  mind  ;    . 
Unlike  the  poet's  vanished  scene, 

He  left  a  rack  behind. 

Oh,  teacher  of  a  kindly  code, 

From  humble  manger  called  ! 
No  reverend  preacher  e'er  has  been 

More  worthily  installed. 

We  wear,  as  thou  did'st,  on  our  eyes, 

Blinders  that  dim  our  sight  ; 
Would  we  could  travel  as  serene 

And  always  keep  the  right. 


CANDOR. 

I  desire  very  much  to  put  upon  the  unpretending  record  of 
this  volume  an  article  which  I  wrote  a  few  years  ago  on 
Candor.  It  seems  to  me  to  present  a  truth  of  great  practical 
importance,  and  one  which  I  have  not  seen  presented  by  any 
of  the  writers  on  moral  subjects.  I  read  it  to  a  leading  doctor 
of  divinity  whom  I  met  at  a  mountain  resort,  and  he  said  the 
idea  was  a  new  one  to  him  and  very  important,  and  that  he 


2/6  REMINISCENCES. 

should  avail  himself  of  it  in  one  of  his  earliest  sermons.     The 
article  is  as  follows : 

Christ  came  into  the  world  on  a  great  mission  from  God  to 
men.  Other  great  prophetic  souls  had  lived  and  spoken  words  of 
inspired  wisdom  for  the  enlightenment  and  guidance  of  men. 
But  Christ  came,  not  merely  proclaiming  divine  truth  and  illus- 
trating it  in  his  own  remarkable  life,  but  with  a  mighty  power  to 
convince  and  subdue,  and  doing  mighty  works  to  attest  the  reality 
of  his  mission  from  God. 

But  when  he  came  into  Galilee  he  encountered  a  resolute  un- 
belief, and  (Matt.  13,  58)  "did  not  many  mighty  works  there  be- 
cause of  their  unbelief." 

Why  was  this  ?  It  was  to  confound  just  such  an  antagonizing 
unbelief  that  he  was  clothed  with  this  special  power.  Why  did 
he  not  exercise  that  power  at  the  very  place  where  it  was  most 
needed  ?  The  hearts  that  were  open  to  receive  him,  the  Nathan- 
iels without  guile,  did  not  need  these  overwhelming  proofs. 
They  were  specially  needed  by  the  men  of  fixed  and  determined 
unbelief  —  the  men  who  clung  tenaciously  to  old  Jewish  ideas  — 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  conservative,  dogmatic,  self-righteous, 
intolerant.  Yet  in  the  presence  of  these  very  men  he  did  not 
many  of  his  convincing  mighty  works. 

And  this  was  not  a  mere  special  occasion,  governed  by  special 
reasons,  and  out  of  harmony  with  his  general  course  of  conduct. 
It  accorded  with  his  general  practice  and  was  only  the  application 
of  a  general  principle  by  which  he  governed  his  conduct.  See 
that  principle  more  strikingly  applied  in  his  conduct  after  he  had 
risen  from  the  dead  and  during  the  forty  days  of  his  return  to 
earth.  To  whom  in  his  re-incarnated  body  did  he  go  ?  You  would 
say  that  he  now  had  the  means  of  utterly  confounding  those  who 
had  denied  him  and  put  him  to  death  as  a  felon.  Here  he  was, 
alive  after  death,  the  very  marks  of  the  nails  and  the  spear  upon 
him.  How  he  might  have  overwhelmed  the  High  Priest.  How 
the  whole  Sanhedrim.  Yet  he  does  not  show  himself  to  one  of 
them.  He  goes  only  to  his  disciples,  to  the  very  men  who  not  only 
needed  little  persuasion,  bnt  who  were  almost  in  a  credulous  state 
of  mind,  and  who  would  be  the  last  men  who  could  bear  effective 
witness  as  to  the  facts.  Every  skeptic  would  at  once  attribute 
their  belief  to  an  overwrought  imagination  and  to  an  eager  credu- 
lity, and  perhaps  the  earnestness  of  their  advocacy  to  an  interest 
in  sustaining  a  cause  to  which  they  had  committed  themselves. 
The  High  Priest,  the  Sanhedrim,  would  say  —  "  Why  did  he  not 


CANDOR.  277 

show  himself  to  us  ?  You,  visionary  and  enthusiastic,  are  no  wit- 
nesses for  us.  If  your  master  has  in  fact  returned  to  earth,  let 
him  show  himself  to  us. " 

Yet  all  this  while  the  fact  that  Christ  had  risen  was  an  almost 
pivotal  fact  in  Christianity.  Paul  says  of  it,  "  If  Christ  be  not  risen 
then  is  your  faith  vain."  This  vital  fact,  so  easily  proved,  so  deci- 
sive in  the  conflict  of  the  new  faith  with  the  old,  so  easily  brought 
to  bear  with  destructive  force  against  the  very  citadel  of  Judaism, 
Christ  forebore  to  avail  himself  of,  and  left  the  scoffers  to  go  on 
into  a  greater  depth  of  hardness  and  unbelief. 

Now  why  was  all  this  ?  There  is  a  great  philosophy  involved 
here  which  I  will  proceed  to  consider  and  which  is  worthy  of  our 
most  serious  consideration. 

And  this  philosophy  is  not  merely  the  very  simple  and  accepted 
theory  that  a  receptive  mind  is  more  likely  to  be  sought  by  the 
spirit  of  truth  and  a  receptive  heart  by  the  inspiration  of  God. 
All  this  is  very  true  and  very  important,  but  the  philosophy  here 
involved  is  something  far  more  profound. 

That  philosophy  is  this.  God  requires  of  men  candor.  He 
does  not  ordinarily  help  them  to  it.  He  requires  them  to  furnish 
it  for  themselves.  Why  is  this  ?  He  helps  men  morally  in  many 
ways.  His  spirit  is  always  seeking  for  the  soul  that  needs  help. 
Why  then  does  he  not  help  men  to  be  candid  ? 

Because  candor  is  a  merely  human  virtue.  That  is,  it  is  a  virtue 
which  it  needs  mere  common  intelligence  to  understand  and  ap- 
preciate. It  is  like  gratitude.  The  whole  world  would  say  that 
the  man  who  is  not  grateful  for  a  real  service  rendered  him  is 
despicable.  Let  a  judge  upon  a  bench  deal  uncandidly  with  a  case 
submitted  to  his  decision  and  there  is  not  a  mind  so  ignorant  or  so 
depraved  that  it  cannot  see  that  he  has  acted  basely.  Lord  Bacon, 
as  chancellor  of  England,  took  a  bribe,  and  the  whole  civilized 
world  has  joined  in  fixing  upon  him  the  designation  of  the  "wisest 
and  meanest  of  mankind. "  Let  two  ignorant  laborers  who  have 
a  matter  of  disagreement,  no  matter  how  small,  agree  to  leave  it 
to  another  laborer,  ignorant  and  perhaps  without  character,  and 
he  will  at  once  lift  himself  up  into  a  sense  of  responsibility  and  do 
his  best  to  decide  right,  and  will  feel  that  to  be  unfair  would  be 
base.  The  mere  common  sense  of  men  tells  them  what  is  right 
in  this  matter,  and  God  demands  that  we  have  this  common  sense 
virtue. 

Now  the  astonishing  thing  is,  that  while  by  common  consent  it 
is  base  to  be  uncandid  in  deciding  a  matter  of  disagreement  be- 


278  REMINISCENCES. 

tween  two  men,  yet  when  we  come  to  that  highest  duty  of  decid- 
ing between  Truth  and  Error,  the  majority  of  men,  and  among 
them  many  otherwise  good  men,  thrust  candor  utterly  aside. 
There  is  hardly  one  in  ten  of  even  editors  of  religious  papers,  who, 
in  dealing  with  a  matter  in  controversy,  would  honestly  represent 
the  opinion  they  are  combating,  or  would  honestly  present  in  its 
exact  meaning  and  connection  some  passage  on  the  other  side 
that  they  take  up  for  criticism.  Such  matters  are  discussed  on 
one  side  and  the  other  in  a  manner  that  would  call  down  the 
rebuke  of  the  judge  if  a  lawyer  were  so  to  deal  with  the  side  of  a 
question  that  he  was  combating.  With  all  its  infelicities  the 
practice  of  law  has  this  felicity  :  —  the  advocate,  if  he  has  good 
sense,  cultivates  the  habit  of  presenting  to  the  court  in  the  clear- 
est and  exactest  manner  the  opposing  side  of  the  case,  that  it  may 
be  seen  that  he  meets  it  with  his  argument  fully  and  squarely.  It 
is  of  no  use  for  him  to  put  up  a  man  of  straw  to  demolish.  It  is  of 
no  use  for  him  to  understate  his  opponent's  case.  He  has  a  sharp 
clear  intellect  on  the  other  side  watching  him,  and  any  represent- 
ation of  his  opponent's  case  that  makes  it  appear  anything  less 
than  it  is,  is  likely  not  only  to  bring  upon  himself  a  damaging 
interruption  from  that  sharp  intellect  but  a  more  damaging  one 
from  the  court,  while  there  results  from  all  the  impression  that 
the  advocate  has  not  confidence  in  his  own  position,  and  dare  not 
meet  the  real  case  against  him. 

But  far  more  important  than  the  questions  which  are  discussed 
between  parties  and  denominations  are  those  which  pertain  to 
human  conduct  and  which  every  man  must  consider  and  decide 
for  himself.  To  every  man  the  question  presents  itself,  and  with 
a  constant  recurrence,  What  shall  I  think  and  do,  and  where  shall 
I  stand,  upon  the  great  questions  of  religion  and  morals  and  social 
progress,  which  the  Providence  of  God  is  bringing  before  us? 
Each  of  us  has  a  great  duty  to  perform  in  deciding  what  we  will 
help  and  what  oppose.  It  is  no  question  submitted  to  us  by  two 
controverting  parties,  of  some  small  indebtedness  of  one  to  the 
other  —  a  question  upon  which,  however  small,  it  would  be  base 
for  us  to  be  uncandid,  but  a  question  put  before  us  by  Providence, 
in  which  we  are  to  decide  between  Truth  and  Error  —  God's  truth 
and  man's  error.  How  are  we  meeting  the  question  ?  With  pre- 
judice ?  With  perhaps  a  hate  that  has  no  foundation  but  ignor- 
ance ?  Or  will  we  say,  "  Show  me  thy  truth,  O  God !  Save  me 
from  the  cowardice  that  fears  man's  opinion.  Save  me  from  the 
miserable  conceit  that  I  know  enough  about  a  matter  that  I  have 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  WOMEN. 


279 


never  examined.  Save  me  from  the  delusion  that  old  things  are 
the  best.  Save  me  from  the  worse  delusion  that  thine  own  truth 
has  been  fully  revealed  and  exhausted,  and  that  the  Spirit  of 
Truth  is  not  to  lead  us  into  all  truth.  May  we  follow  where 
the  Spirit  of  Truth  leads  —  a  leading  and  a  following  that  neces- 
sarily imply  progression  —  a  constant  advance  into  a  higher  and 
higher  revelation  of  thy  truth. " 

There  is  a  great  revelation  of  divine  truth  in  the  Gospel.  In 
what  spirit  do  we  study  that  Gospel  ?  Have  we  yet  comprehended 
it  in  its  application  to  the  widening  spirit  of  inquiry  and  growing 
intelligence  of  the  Christian  world  ?  It  has  seemed  to  us  some- 
times very  strange  that  the  disciples,  hearing  Christ's  own  words, 
brought  into  loving  companionship  with  him  and  living  under  the 
magnetism  of  his  presence,  could  have  failed  as  they  did  to  com- 
prehend the  great  spiritual  character  of  his  kingdom.  But  we 
have  read  all  that  they  have  recorded  of  the  teaching  and  life  and 
death  of  Christ ;  we  have  seen  his  church,  so  feeble  at  the  outset, 
almost  fill  the  earth  with  its  anthems  ;  we  have  seen  his  religion 
grow  into  an  almost  worldwide  recognition  and  dominion ;  we 
have  seen  the  operation  of  the  divine  spirit  upon  the  hearts  of 
men  ;  and  we  cannot  but  know  that  here  is  a  mighty  power  that 
shall  make  a  conquest  of  the  whole  earth  ;  and  yet,  are  we  not  as 
much  too  narrow  in  our  conceptions  of  what  that  kingdom  is  and 
is  to  be,  of  its  real  nature  and  power  and  of  its  vast  comprehen- 
siveness, as  were  the  poor  fishermen  that  followed  Christ  in  Gal- 
ilee ?  I  think  we  are. 

But  a  more  serious  question  for  us  is  —  Are  we  willing  to  abide 
in  this  region  of  narrowness  and  prejudice  ? 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  WOMEN. 

I  was  born  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  and  had  there- 
fore an  opportunity  to  observe  the  condition  of  women  as 
members  of  society  when  the  laws  of  society  determined  their 
sphere  and  compressed  them  within  it. 

In  my  boyhood  women  bowed  to  these  laws  as  if  they 
were  laws  of  nature,  and  hardly  dreamed  of  calling  them  in 
question.  Such  a  thing  as  a  woman  doctor  was  unknown,  and 
it  was  a  common  joke,  when  they  first  began  to  be  thought  of, 
"  How  would  you  like  to  have  your  wife  called  up  at  midnight 
to  go  and  see  another  woman's  husband?"  It  was  almost 


280  REMINISCENCES. 

universally  regarded  as  a  gross  indelicacy  for  a  woman  to  let 
her  innocent  mind  touch  the  subject  of  physiology  or  anatomy. 
Dr.  Elizabeth  Blackwell,  in  the  story  of  her  early  experiences, 
tells  us  what  almost  insuperable  obstacles  she  found  in  her 
way.  Mrs.  Paulina  Wright  Davis,  when  she  began  her  most 
instructive  lectures  to  women  on  physiology,  was  repudiated 
by  her  own  family  as  if  she  had  become  a  profligate,  and  yet 
she  was  one  of  the  most  modest,  as  well  as  most  cultured, 
women  of  her  time.  How  is  it  now  about  women  physicians  ? 
We  all  know  and  esteem  and  trust  them.  The  country  is  full 
of  them,  and  no  physicians  are  better  educated,  or  more  suc- 
cessful in  their  practice,  or  more  respected  by  the  public. 

Take  the  matter  of  women  speaking  in  public.  In  my  boy- 
hood it  was  a  thing  unheard  of,  and  the  suggestion  would  have 
shocked  almost  every  woman.  The  American  and  Foreign 
Anti-Slavery  Society  was  formed  by  abolitionists,  our  highest 
type  of  reformers,  who  left  and  repudiated  the  old  American 
Anti-Slaver}-  Society  mainly  because  the  latter  allowed  women, 
and  especially  Abby  Kelly,  one  of  the  most  effective  of 
speakers,  to  make  public  addresses.  One  of  the  boldest  stands 
taken,  a  few  years  after  this,  was  by  Anna  Dickinson,  who,  to 
the  general  wonder  and  to  the  apprehension  of  our  best  people, 
began  to  speak  against  slavery  at  the  meetings  of  the  Repub- 
lican party.  I  went  with  my  wife  to  hear  her,  not  merely 
with  much  curiosity,  but  with  great  anxiety  as  to  her  success. 
Not  long  after  this  a  young  lady  of  one  of  our  first  families, 
who  had  been  very  intimate  with  Miss  Dickinson,  asked  her  to 
be  one  of  her  bridesmaids  at  her  approaching  wedding.  She 
also  requested  another  very  intimate  friend  to  act  as  brides- 
maid, informing  her  that  Miss  Dickinson  was  also  to  act.  But 
the  mother  of  the  friend  wrote  the  mother  of  the  young  lady 
that  she  could  not  consent  to  her  daughter  acting  as  brides- 
maid with  Miss  Dickinson,  because  of  the  latter's  speaking  in 
public,  which  she  thought  utterly  unfit  for  a  modest  woman 
to  do.  Yet  now  we  have  a  great  number  of  women  speakers 
and  lecturers  to  whom  our  pulpits  are  open,  who  are  intro- 
duced by  accomplished  presiding  officers,  and  are  listened  to 
by  crowds  of  our  most  cultivated  people. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  century  the  industrial  field  of  women 
covered  only  half  a  dozen  overcrowded  employments.     Now 


MY  THEOLOGY.  28 1 

nearly  or  quite  a  hundred  are  not  only  open  to  them,  but  occu- 
pied by  them.  Indeed,  all  the  industries  are  open  to  them. 
There  are  no  "  jail  limits "  known  as  "  woman's  sphere." 
They  may  do  anything  that  they  feel  able  and  desire  to  do. 
Comparing  their  condition  now  with  what  it  was  in  the  early 
part  of  the  century,  their  advance  has  been  enormous.  They 
live  in  another  world  from  what  they  then  lived  in. 

These  facts  are  familiar  and  have  become  commonplace. 
We  have  got  too  far  along  to  take  much  notice  of  them.  But 
it  is  worth  considering  by  those  who  are  opposed  to  granting 
political  rights  to  woman,  that  she  has  advanced  so  far  that  one 
more  and  final  step  into  full  enfranchisement  will  be  but  a  short 
step  as  compared  with  the  many  steps  that  have  brought  her  to 
the  point  where  she  is.  If  all  that  she  has  gained  has  not 
broken  up  our  social  foundations,  and  has  not  de-womanized 
her,  there  need  to  be  no  fear  that  the  short  final  step  will  do  it. 
Woman  will  take  that  step,  and,  with  her  larger  intelligence 
and  greater  interest  in  public  affairs,  will  be  found  the  same 
wifely  companion,  the  same  devoted  mother,  and  the  same 
unselfish  worker  for  the  public  good. 


MY  THEOLOGY. 

It  is  not  without  hesitation  that  I  give  to  the  readers  of  my 
book  my  views  on  theology,  mainly  because  I  may  seem  to 
regard  them  as  of  some  importance  to  the  world.  If  of  little 
importance  to  the  public,  it  is  yet  due  to  myself  that  I  be  not 
misunderstood  in  the  matter,  and  that,  so  far  as  I  have  arrived 
at  settled  opinions,  I  have  the  courage  to  state  them. 

From  my  early  manhood  there  has  been  nothing  that  has 
operated  as  a  restraining  force  upon  me  more  than  the  fear 
that  I  might  by  some  act  or  word  lead  some  fellow-man  into 
error  of  belief  or  life.  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  do  that  here. 
But  I  cannot  from  that  apprehension  leave  my  position  in  this 
most  important  matter  unavowed.  I  have  given  deep  thought 
and  much  prayer  to  the  inquiry  after  God's  truth.  I  had  no 
theory  of  my  own  with  which  I  wished  to  bring  divine  truth 
into  harmony.  All  I  desired  to  know  was,  what  is  divine 
truth.  In  this  search  I  may  have  been  led  into  perceptions  of 
19 


282  REMINISCENCES. 

truth  which  I  ought  not  to  withhold  from  other  inquirers. 
Christ  said  that  the  "Spirit  of  Truth  "  is  "  to  come,"  and  is  "  to 
lead  us  into  all  truth."  This  implies  progress,  and  progress 
out  of  what  is  accepted  as  truth  in  one  age  into  what  a  later 
age  shall  be  taught  as  truth  by  the  Spirit  of  Truth.  I  cannot 
shirk  the  duty  of  speaking  for  God  and  what  I  believe  to  be 
Truth. 

I  was  born  in  Farmington,  Conn.,  in  1816.  Rev.  Dr. 
Noah  Porter,  father  of  the  late  President  Porter  of  Yale  Col- 
lege, was  my  pastor,  a  man  of  most  solid  intellect  and  charac- 
ter, who  would  have  made  a  great  chief  justice  or  chancellor. 
He  accepted  and  earnestly  preached  all  the  dogmas  of  the  old 
Calvinistic  theology.  My  father,  who  was  one  of  his  deacons, 
accepted  them  all.  I  was  brought  up  to  believe  them.  I 
joined  the  church  when  I  was  a  little  over  twenty,  expressing 
at  the  time  my  belief  in  all  those  dogmas  by  accepting  the 
creed  of  the  church  in  which  they  were  embodied. 

I  settled  in  Hartford  in  1851,  my  wife  and  I  joining  the 
Fourth  Congregational  Church,  under  the  pastorate  of  Rev. 
William  W.  Patton,  who,  after  a  few  years,  was  succeeded  by 
Rev.  Nathaniel  J.  Burton.  A  few  years  later  I  went  with  Mr. 
Burton  to  the  Park  Church,  where  I  remained  till  some  time 
after  his  death  in  1887.  Early  in  my  connection  with  the 
Fourth  Church  I  was  elected  one  of  its  deacons,  and  afterwards 
a  deacon  of  the  Park  Church,  holding  the  office  of  deacon  in 
the  two  churches  for  probably  twenty-five  years.  It  was  after 
I  came  to  Hartford  that  I  began  to  have  most  serious  doubts 
about  one  and  another  of  the  doctrines  of  Calvinism.  Some 
of  the  more  obnoxious  of  these  had  already  been  extensively 
repudiated  —  such  as  the  doctrine  of  Reprobation — and  others 
had  been  seriously  discredited  or  explained  away,  as  that  of 
Election.  I  soon  came  to  see  that  everything  ought  to  be 
brought  to  the  test  of  the  best  human  reason,  human  reason 
exercising  itself  in  a  sincere  desire  to  find  the  truth,  and  seek- 
ing the  aid  of  God  in  the  inquiry. 

While  in  painful  suspense  as  to  the  effect  to  be  given  to 
the  deep  impressions  made  upon  my  reason,  I  called  to  see 
Professor  Johnson  (since  deceased),  then  a  professor  in  Trinity 
College,  and  also  a  preacher  of  rare  spiritual  gifts  in  the 


MY  THEOLOGY.  283 

Episcopal  church.  I  knew  him  well  and  held  him  in  high 
esteem,  and  I  knew  that  as  a  preacher  of  that  denomination  he 
would  incline  to  give  me  conservative  advice.  I  told  him  how 
I  stood  towards  these  old  dogmas  —  that  I  could  not  help  re- 
jecting them  as  against  all  reason  and  unworthy  of  belief.  But, 
said  I,  there  were  grand  old  Dr.  Porter  and  Dr.  Beecher,  the 
best  of  men,  who  prayed  daily  to  be  guided  into  all  truth,  and 
they  fully  believed  them.  How  can  my  poorer  intelligence  and 
faith  be  trusted  when  they  reject  what  such  men  believed? 
Shall  I  trust  my  own  convictions  or  theirs  ?  "  Trust  your  own 
convictions,"  he  said.  I  had  not  gone  into  any  detail  as  to 
what  I  believed  or  rejected,  so  that  Professor  Johnson  was 
not  committing  himself  to  any  particular  of  my  disbelief,  but  I 
felt  that  I  had  his  authority  for  freedom  of  opinion  in  theo- 
logical matters. 

I  have  spoken  only  in  the  most  general  way  of  my  revolt 
against  the  authority  of  old  dogmas.  I  will  go  a  little  more 
into  detail. 

i.  The  Idea  of  God.  That  which  prevailed  in  my  youth 
and  was  taught  from  the  pulpit  and  in  the  Sabbath-school  was 
one  that,  in  my  maturer  years,  I  could  not  accept;  which,  in- 
deed, I  felt  compelled  to  reject  as  a  libel  upon  the  Creator. 
The  opening  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  Catechism,  which 
we  were  required  to  recite  every  Saturday  in  the  public  schools, 
says  of  God  that  "  He  made  all  things  for  his  own  glory."  I 
think  this  is  a  horrible  untruth.  I  do  not  believe  that  God 
ever  thinks  of  such  a  thing  as  his  own  glory.  He  is  full  of  the 
thought  of  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  people  he  has 
made.  His  one  great  thought  is  of  his  universe.  He  has  not 
a  particle  of  that  vanity  or  conceit  or  pride  of  sovereignty  that 
we  so  often  see  in  earthly  rulers.  The  pulsations  of  his  heart 
of  love  fill  the  universe  with  their  infinite  rhythm.  So  also  the 
idea  that  has  been  so  often  taught  from  the  pulpit  and  in  re- 
ligious books  that  God's  sovereignty  gives  him  absolute  and 
unqualified  right  and  power  over  the  creatures  he  has  made, 
that  we  are  but  clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter,  is  one  of  the  mis- 
representations that  the  Creator  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
theologians.  God  has  no  right  to  make  a  human  being  with- 
out doing  the  best  that  he  can  for  his  welfare.  I  know  it  will 


284  REMINISCENCES. 

seem  to  many  theologians  audacious  in  me  to  talk  of  the  rights 
of  men  against  God,  but  I  believe  that  God  looks  on  me  with  a 
more  kindly  regard  for  daring  to  make  that  statement.  I 
think  he  is  only  disgusted  with  all  the  cringing  with  which  so 
many  men  approach  him.  He  does  not  wish  us  to  crawl  like 
worms  of  the  dust,  but  to  stand  up  like  men,  ready  to  give  to 
him  the  service  of  our  bodies,  as  his  temples,  as  well  as  of  our 
minds  and  hearts.  It  is  a  grand  calling  from  God  to  do  men's 
work  for  him,  and  the  more  we  stand  up  as  men  for  it  the  more 
we  shall  have  his  approval.  In  the  most  perfect  humility 
towards  God  and  sense  of  utter  dependence  on  him,  there  need 
not  be  a  particle  of  abjectness. 

A  great  question  has  arisen  within  a  few  years  as  to  the 
nature  of  God,  a  large  number  of  truly  religious  men,  and 
among  them  some  of  our  best  preachers,  holding  that  God  is 
only  a  part  of  nature,  or  rather,  perhaps,  is  nature  itself,  not 
outside  of  nature  as  a  creator  of  it,  but  as  a  force  within  it, 
indistinguishable  from  it,  and,  of  course,  not  a  personal  being. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  settle  down  comfortably  upon  this 
view.  If  God  is  not  a  personal  being  I  do  not  see  how  he  can 
be  a  hearer  of  prayer.  Yet  I  should  feel  like  an  orphan  if  I 
believed  that  he  could  not  hear  my  prayers.  Christ  taught  us 
that  the  Father  heard  us,  and  encouraged  us  to  pray.  This  is 
enough  to  decide  my  own  mind  in  the  matter.  Whatever  we 
may  think  of  the  nature  of  Christ,  we  know  that  he  had  the 
highest  spiritual  perception,  and  as  our  great  Teacher  could 
not  have  been  mistaken  in  a  matter  that  he  taught  so  em- 
phatically and  practiced  so  constantly  and  fervently.  There 
is  another  consideration  that  has  weight  with  me  in  the  matter. 
We  ourselves  are  a  part  of  nature,  as  much  so  as  the  trees  and 
rocks;  we  grow  by  the  force  of  nature  just  as  the  trees  do. 
And  our  minds  are  a  part  of  nature  as  much  as  our  bodies, 
and  grow  as  naturally.  Their  growth  is  by  an  expanding 
force  within  them,  not  by  an  external  force.  Now  inspiration, 
a  force  to  which  the  human  mind  is  susceptible  and  responsive, 
is  an  external  force.  It  is  not  a  sudden  and  extraordinary  but 
yet  natural  expansion  of  the  mind  itself.  It  is  an  afflatus  from 
without,  a  breathing  in  upon  us.  It  is  the  old  "  enthusiasm  " 
of  the  Greeks,  which  with  them  was  "  a  god  within  us,"  not  a 


THEOLOGY.  285 

god  abiding  in  us,  but  a  god  entering  into  us  from  without. 
Every  one  who  has  felt  inspiration,  and  those  who  have  felt  it 
in  the  highest  degree  have  been  those  who  could  most  in- 
telligently understand  and  report  its  operation,  knows  it  to  be 
some  motion  upon  the  mind  from  the  outside.  Now,  if  in- 
spiration comes  from  a  divine  source,  which  I  believe  is  a 
settled  point  in  theology,  the  God  from  whom  it  comes  must 
be  something  wholly  outside  of  ourselves ;  and  if  outside  of 
ourselves,  then  outside  of  all  the  rest  of  nature. 

2.  Everlasting  Punishment.  This  dogma  I  reject  with  all 
the  force  that  I  can  put  into  the  rejection.  It  is  a  dogma  that 
can  live  only  as  a  part  of  a  system  that  robs  God  of  all  his 
Fatherhood  and  makes  him  a  remorseless  tyrant.  As  I  believe 
in  no  such  God,  I  cannot  accept  this  hideous  outcome  from  that 
false  conception  of  him.  If  God  created  a  world  of  which 
more  than  half  the  people  in  it  were  to  go  finally  into  eternal 
suffering,  then  he  is  not  worthy  of  our  worship,  and,  indeed, 
may  justly  be  abhorred.  A  human  father  that  should  leave  his 
own  child  to  grow  up  in  ignorance  and  crime,  would  be  re- 
garded by  us  as  a  monster.  God  creates  a  child  that  is  born 
in  shame  in  the  slums  of  London,  who  never  hears  the  name 
of  God  except  in  profanity,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty  is  shot 
down  in  attempting  to  commit  a  robbery.  Now,  if  God  sends 
that  boy  to  hell,  there  to  remain  and  suffer  forever,  then  he  is 
no  better  than  that  unnatural  father  whom  we  all  agree  in  call- 
ing a  monster. 

I  put  this  very  case  to  a  clergyman  who  expressed  to  me 
his  full  belief  in  everlasting  punishment,  and  he  replied  that  he 
did  not  believe  that  boy's  condemnation  would  be  so  great  as 
that  of  those  who  had  had  better  opportunities,  but  that  it 
would  be  exclusion  from  heaven,  and  without  end.  "  Why," 
said  he,  "  such  a  young  man,  if  taken  away  from  his  vile  asso- 
ciates and  placed  in  a  refined  Christian  family,  would  be  per- 
fectly miserable,  and,  if  he  could  run  away,  would  go  back  to 
the  slums  at  once.  Now,  God  may  keep  up  through  eternity 
such  a  place  as  the  hell  for  such  souls,  where  they  will  be 
denied  all  rational  happiness  and  yet  will  not  be  wholly  miser- 
able." 

I  replied  that  the  supposition  was  to  me  simply  horrible. 
That  the  Indian  boys  and  girls  in  our  Hampton  and  York 


286  REMINISCENCES. 

schools  often  went  back  to  their  old  life  as  a  matter  of  prefer- 
ence, but  we  did  not  hesitate  to  do  all  we  could  to  educate 
and  christianize  them  so  as  to  lead  them  to  a  better  life,  and 
can  it  be  (said  I)  that  God  would  not  do  all  in  his  power  to 
bring  men  out  from  such  degradation  and  up  into  a  higher  and 
better  life?  And  that,  too,  where  a  child  had  never  had  any 
other  chance  ?  It  is  my  full  and  settled  belief  that  sinful  men 
in  the  other  world  are  taught  and  helped  by  the  best  spirits  over 
there  to  overcome  what  is  evil  in  their  characters,  and  that, 
after  it  may  be  many  years,  they  come,  through  penitence  and 
earnest  effort,  into  fitness  for  pure  companionship  and  a  life 
of  love  and  worship. 

3.  Salvation.  I  believe  profoundly  that  a  man  is  saved 
by  character,  and  not  by  any  vicarious  sacrifice  or  imputed 
righteousness.  As  a  man  leaves  this  world  and  goes  into  the 
next,  he  merely  passes  through  a  dividing  door,  and  is  in  every 
respect  the  same  man  after  the  transition  as  before.  If  his  life 
has  been  truly  a  good  one,  he  passes  at  once  into  the  highest 
society  of  that  world.  If  it  has  not  been  so,  he  must  linger  in 
greater  or  less  of  darkness  and  distress,  till,  under  the  influence 
of  that  world  and  its  teachers,  he  is  brought  to  contrition  for  his 
evil  doing,  and  to  abhorrence  of  the  evil  and  aspiration  for 
the  good. 

So  far  as  the  death  of  Christ  is  a  factor  in  his  salvation, 
I  think  its  whole  effect  is  a  moral  one  and  that  its  operation 
is  man-ward  and  not  God-ward.  "  If  I  be  raised  up  I  will 
draw  all  men  unto  me,"  Christ  said.  Its  object  was,  I  am 
sure,  to  stop  present  sin  much  more  than  to  pay  the  penalty 
of  past  sin.  The  Scriptures  are  full  of  declarations  of  God's 
fatherly  love  and  mercy.  If  a  sinful  man  has  thoroughly  re- 
formed and  has  become  a  truly  godly  man,  we  have  their 
authority  for  believing  that  God  will  not  dwell  on  his  past 
sins,  but  will  readily  forgive  all  that  he  has  been  for  the  joy 
of  finding  him  what  he  is.  The  old  Calvinistic  doctrine 
that  God  must  exact  a  penalty  from  the  sinner  or  from  some 
one  for  him,  to  maintain  the  dignity  of  his  own  moral  gov- 
ernment, I  believe  to  be  a  terrible  misconception.  I  heard 
this  doctrine  expressed  from  a  Presbyterian  pulpit  a  few 
years  ago  in  terms  that  were  horrible  to  listen  to,  but  yet 


MY  THEOLOGY.  28? 

were  only  a  fair  statement  of  the  Calvinistic  idea.  I  was  spend- 
ing a  Sunday  in  one  of  the  towns  of  central  Pennsylvania 
about  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  attended  the  Presbyterian 
church  of  the  village,  where  a  professor  in  a  neighboring  theo- 
logical seminary  preached  for  the  day.  His  subject  was  the 
atonement.  He  described  the  Father  as  an  awful  sovereign 
appearing  in  the  heavens  and  brandishing  the  sword  of  justice, 
and  crying  out,  "  A  victim,  a  victim,  I  must  have  a  victim !  " 
At  which  Christ  appeared  at  the  other  side  of  the  heavens,  and, 
baring  his  bosom,  said,  "  Here  is  the  victim  " ;  upon  which  the 
Father  plunged  the  sword  up  to  the  hilt  in  his  bosom,  and 
"  was  satisfied."  I  have  done  the  preacher  no  injustice  by 
overstating  the  matter.  It  was  all  literally  as  I  have  described 
it.  Let  those  who  hold  to  that  fearful  doctrine  find  pleasure 
in  contemplating  that  awful  picture.  I  for  one  believe  in  God 
as  a  loving  Father,  and  see  in  that  representation  of  him  only 
an  atrocious  libel.  I  believe  no  theologian  of  to-day  would 
dare  present  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  in  that  bald  and 
shocking  way;  and,  if  so,  it  shows  that  the  doctrine  has  no 
solid  foundation  and  recedes  before  the  growing  intelligence 
of  the  age.  The  only  statement  by  Christ  of  the  process  by 
which  a  sinner  turns  from  the  error  of  his  ways  and  is  accepted 
by  God  is  his  story  of  the  prodigal  son.  Here  the  son,  brought 
to  the  depths  of  degradation  and  want,  determined  to  arise  and 
go  to  his  father.  He  did  so,  walking  in  his  rags  and  conning 
as  he  went  the  words  of  confession  with  which  he  would  meet 
his  father:  "  Father,  I  have  sinned  against  Heaven  and  in  thy 
sight,  and  am  not  worthy  to  be  called  thy  son."  His  father 
had  doubtless  been  looking  out  for  his  return  every  day  since 
he  went  away,  and  when  he  saw  him  afar  off  he  ran  to  him  and 
fell  upon  his  neck  and  kissed  him,  before  he  had  time  to  repeat 
those  words  of  confession  which  he  had  ready.  And  when 
the  son  gets  home  he  does  not  attempt  to  humiliate  him  before 
his  household ;  he  imposes  no  penalty,  but  he  says  to  his 
servants,  "  Bring  forth  the  best  robe  and  put  it  on  him,  and 
put  a  ring  on  his  hand  and  shoes  on  his  feet,  and  bring  hither 
the  fatted  calf  and  kill  it  and  let  us  eat  and  be  merry."  I  set 
this  statement  of  Christ  over  against  that  of  the  Presbyterian 
preacher.  Who  can  blame  me  for  siding  with  Christ  in  the 
matter  ? 


288  REMINISCENCES. 

According  to  the  Calvinistic  belief,  a  man  may  have  all  the 
qualities  which,  according  to  the  first  psalm,  will  make  him 
"  blessed,"  and  yet  fail  of  eternal  life,  because  as  a  Hebrew,  or 
as  a  scientific  thinker,  he  does  not  accept  the  atonement  of 
Christ.  Indeed,  all  the  beatitudes  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
may  belong  justly  to  him  and  yet  he  may  fail  of  salvation.  But 
the  Scriptures  are  full  of  promises  of  highest  rewards  to  good 
living.  "  What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but  that  thou 
do  justice,  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly  before  thy  God." 
After  naming  sundry  acts  of  a  good  life,  they  say :  "  He  that 
doeth  these  things  shall  never  be  moved."  Indeed,  where 
Jesus  is  depicting  in  fearful  language  the  condemnation  of  the 
wicked,  he  imputes  to  them  only  selfishness  and  inhumanity, 
and  not  unbelief  —  a  lack  of  all  brotherliness  towards  one's 
fellow  men,  and  not  a  lack  of  devoutness  towards  God.  It  is 
a  great  loss  to  a  human  soul  not  to  come  into  loving  com- 
munion with  God,  and  it  may  require  years  of  sorrowful  ex-» 
perience  in  the  other  life  to  educate  such  a  soul  into  a  full  com- 
prehension and  enjoyment  of  that  high  relation,  but  if  the  life 
and  character  are  right,  the  soul  may  expect  acceptance  when 
it  reaches  that  life. 

I  would  not  disparage  the  work  of  Christ.  He  has  done  a 
wonderful  work  for  men  in  his  example  and  teaching  and  in 
his  sacrifice  of  himself  for  them.  What  there  may  be  in  the 
hidden  counsels  of  the  Almighty  that  may  have  given  a  special 
efficacy  to  his  death  I  do  not  know.  All  that  I  care  to  contend 
for  here  is  that  it  is  not  essential  to  the  salvation  of  any  soul 
that  it  should  have  believed  in  and  accepted  that  sacrifice,  or 
indeed  that  it  should  ever  have  known  of  it.  This,  I  believe, 
is  essentially  the  doctrine  of  the  Universalists.  The  sacrifices 
of  the  Jews,  an  important  part  of  their  religious  system,  and 
which  constitute  a  strong  argument  for  an  atoning  sacrifice  in 
the  Christian  system,  were  made,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  in- 
dividual who  should  by  some  exercise  of  faith  believe  in  their 
potency  and  accept  their  effect,  but  for  the  whole  people. 
There  was  never  lived  a  better  Christian  life  than  that  of  Sir 
Moses  Montefiore,  and  yet  as  a  Jew  he  rejected  wholly  the  idea 
of  the  atonement.  I  cannot  believe  that  his  soul  is  lost.  I 
think  it  has  a  high  place  in  the  other  world.  There  are  no 


MY  THEOLOGY.  289 

more  godly  men  than  some  of  our  Jewish  rabbis,  and  yet  they 
do  not  accept  Christ.  A  godly  character  is  essential  to  salva- 
tion under  the  atonement,  whatever  efficacy  we  may  give  it,  and 
the  godly  character,  I  am  sure,  will  in  itself  save  the  soul. 

It  is  only  as  we  regard  Christ  as  human  that  we  can  find 
in  his  death  that  depth  of  sacrifice  that  would  be  fitting  to  the' 
supposed  result.  He  was  a  man  of  sorrows  and  had  not  where 
to  lay  his  head.  What  sacrifice  could  it  be  to  him,  if  divine,  to 
lay  down  such  a  burdened  and  weary  life  and  enter  into  the 
ineffable  glory  of  his  waiting  kingdom?  What  sacrifice  that 
could  be  compared  with  that  of  many  a  young  man  who  went 
into  our  civil  war  and  laid  down  his  life  in  the  defense  of  his 
country  and  for  the  liberty  of  men? 

The  church  in  its  history  has  held  so  many  theories  with 
regard  to  the  atonement  that  that  now  held  cannot  be  regarded 
as  invested  with  an  authority  that  places  it  beyond  most  serious 
questioning. 

4.  The  Nature  of  Christ.  Perhaps  there  is  nothing  that 
orthodox  Christians  hold  more  tenaciously  than  that  Jesus  be- 
came the  son  of  Mary  only  by  a  miracle,  and  that  he  was  of  a 
divine  nature  and  "  very  God."  The  question  is  one  of  most 
serious  difficulty,  and  I  do  not  propose,  in  my  ignorance  of  so 
much  that  I  need  to  know  for  an  intelligent  study  of  it,  to  allow 
myself  to  reach,  and  much  less  to  express,  any  settled  con- 
clusion on  the  subject.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how,  if  the  synop- 
tic gospels  are  to  be  accepted  as  absolutely  correct  in  their 
statements,  as  to  both  the  actions  and  the  words  of  Jesus, 
there  can  easily  be  any  other  conclusion  than  that  he  was  of 
divine  birth.  His  language  is  often  in  the  highest  degree  self- 
assertive  and  authoritative,  while  it  is  almost  a  universal  rule 
that  a  human  being  of  great  superiority  of  endowment  is 
modest  and  even  self-depreciating.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  how 
Jesus  can  have  said  some  things  which  he  did  without  having 
a  full  sense  of  the  divine  power  within  him,  and  if  he  felt  con- 
scious of  the  possession  of  such  a  power  it  becomes  a  very 
strong  argument  in  favor  of  his  really  having  it,  for  it  seems 
hardly  possible  that,  with  his  clear  intellectual  perceptions,  he 
could  have  been  deceived  in  the  matter.  It  is  claimed,  too, 
that  Paul,  and  those  of  the  disciples  who  wrote  on  the  sub- 


2QO  REMINISCENCES. 

ject,  believed  in  his  divinity,  and  their  testimony  in  all  the  cir- 
cumstances is  certainly  entitled  to  special  weight.  The  almost 
universal  acceptance  of  that  view  by  the  Christian  church  for 
so  many  centuries  is  also  in  itself  a  high  authority  in  the 
matter. 

On  the  other  side,  it  is  said  that  the  idea  of  a  double  nature 
in  Jesus,  part  God  and  part  man,  is  one  so  impossible  of  com- 
prehension as  to  create  the  greatest  improbability  of  it,  while  it 
is  contrary  to  God's  manner  of  dealing  with  the  world  and  its 
people,  which  is  to  make  use  wholly  of  the  laws  and  forces  of 
nature ;  and  that  Paul,  the  strongest  authority  on  that  side, 
made  on  the  subject  this  most  significant  declaration  in  I  Cor. 
xv,  27,  28 :  "  For  he  hath  put  all  things  under  his  feet.  But 
when  he  saith  all  things  are  put  under  him  it  is  manifest  that 
he  is  excepted  who  did  put  all  things  under  him.  And  when  all 
things  shall  be  subdued  unto  him,  then  shall  the  Son  also  be 
subject  unto  him  that  put  all  things  under  him,  that  God  may 
be  all  in  all."  This  passage,  it  is  contended,  can  mean  only 
that  the  exaltation  of  Christ,  no  matter  how  high,  was  yet 
limited  as  to  both  its  nature  and  its  duration,  and  that  he 
would  not  finally  be  embraced  in  the  Godhead  and  had 
never  been  brought  within  it.  It  is  claimed  also  that  the 
gospels  were  written  so  long  after  the  death  of  Christ  that  it 
is  hardly  possible  for  them  to  have  been  absolutely  accurate 
in  their  statements,  and  especially  in  what  they  give  as  Christ's 
language;  that  the  first  and  second  chapters  of  Luke,  which 
contain  the  exquisite  story  of  his  birth  at  Bethlehem,  are  of 
questionable  authenticity,  and  are  not  found  in  a  well  authen- 
ticated gospel  written  before  Luke's;  that  by  prophecy  and 
universal  belief  it  was  indispensable  that  the  Messiah  should 
be  of  the  lineage  of  David,  and  that  it  was  impossible  that 
Jesus  should  be  of  that  lineage  through  his  mother  alone ;  and 
that  both  Matthew  and  Luke,  who  alone  give  his  genealogy, 
give  us  the  name  of  Joseph  as  the  representative  of  that 
lineage.  In  accordance  with  the  idea  that  God  employs 
natural  forces  to  carry  out  his  divine  purposes,  it  is  claimed 
that  there  may  have  been  a  great  overshadowing  power  at 
the  natural  conception  of  Jesus,  which  gave  to  him,  in  his 
wholly  human  nature,  a  great  spiritual  and  special  quality, 


MY  THEOLOGY. 


291 


which,  as  he  grew  up,  unfolded  into  a  marvelous  spiritual 
power.  And  with  regard  to  his  "  mighty  works,"  it  is  claimed 
that,  supposing  them  to  have  been  all  that  they  are  recorded  as 
being,  they  do  not  differ  essentially  from  many  marvelous 
works  of  some  of  the  old  saints  and  prophets,  "  who  through 
faith  subdued  kingdoms,  stopped  the  mouths  of  lions,  quenched 
the  violence  of  fire,  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  turned  to  flight  the 
armies  of  the  aliens ;  women  received  their  dead  raised  to  life 
again  "  (Hebrews  xi,  23,  24,  25) ;  and  Jesus  himself  declared 
that,  under  the  same  faith,  and  with  belief  in  him,  we  all  could 
do  the  mighty  works  which  he  did,  and  even  "  greater  works  " 
than  his. 

This  is  only  an  outline  of  the  argument  on  both  sides  of  the 
question,  and  I  give  it  here,  not  to  help  in  the  settlement  of  the 
difficulty,  but  to  suggest  whether  it  is  important  that  we  should 
come  to  a  settled  conclusion  in  our  own  minds  on  the  subject. 
Can  it  make  any  great  difference  whether  Jesus  was  conceived 
by  a  miracle  and  so  was  of  superhuman  birth,  or  received  at  his 
conception  a  divine  baptism,  raising  him  spiritually  above  all 
other  men  ?  In  either  case  he  would  be  the  same  Messiah,  the 
same  great  Teacher,  the  same  Master,  the  same  Lord.  He 
will  ever  be  the  "  Prince  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Heart." 

Edward  Irving,  in  the  height  of  his  wonderful  work  in 
London  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  expressed  the  opinion 
that,  while  the  soul  of  Jesus  was  divine,  his  body  was  merely 
human ;  else,  said  he,  how  could  he  have  been  tempted  as  we 
are  and  how  understand  our  infirmities?  The  orthodox  theo- 
logians at  once  took  him  up  for  this  blasphemous  statement, 
as  they  called  it,  and  Irving  was  hurried  to  his  grave  by  the 
bitter  and  unrelenting  persecution  to  which  he  was  subjected. 
Several  of  the  best  Scotch  clergymen  were  silenced  by  their 
presbyteries.  And  yet  who  now  hears  any  English  or  Scotch 
theologian  contending  for  the  divine  nature  of  Christ's  body? 
As  a  matter  of  discussion,  the  question  has  all  gone  by.  So 
the  question  as  to  Christ's  nature,  whether  he  was  divine  by 
his  birth  or  raised  to  the  summit  of  spiritual  exaltation  by 
divine  inspiration,  it  seems  to  me,  will  pass  by  as  only  a  sub- 
ject of  curious  speculation  and  as  no  longer  of  vital  interest  to 
men. 


292 


REMINISCENCES. 


There  is  much  difference  of  opinion  among  good  men  as  to 
the  nature  of  God.  I  have  referred  to  this  in  an  early  part  of 
this  article.  Is  it  necessary  for  us  to  decide  this  point  before 
we  can  worship  God?  Surely  it  is  not.  The  questions  that 
deeply  interest  us  relate  to  his  attributes  —  his  love,  his  wis- 
dom, his  power,  his  fatherly  care  of  us,  and  our  dependence 
upon  him ;  in  a  word,  his  moral  nature.  If  these  are  under- 
stood and  felt,  what  matter  is  it  to  us  exactly  what  is  his  ma- 
terial nature,  if  I  may  use  such  a  term  ?  Ought  we  not  to  try  to 
bring  all  religious  people  together  in  the  service  of  God,  and 
not  keep  them  apart  by  dogmatic  and  speculative  differences? 

5.  The  Scriptures.  It  is  the  orthodox  belief  that  the 
Scriptures  are  the  "  Word  of  God,"  and  that  its  writers  were 
inspired  by  him,  and  that  inspiration  ceased  to  exist  with  them. 
I  heard  Mr.  Moody  say,  as  he  held  up  the  Bible  before  his 
audience,  "  Every  word  between  these  covers  is  inspired." 
I  do  not  think  that  term  has  any  application  to  mere  narratives, 
especially  of  ancient  facts  of  which  the  writers  knew  nothing. 
This  is  very  different  from  declarations  purporting  to  have 
been  made  by  God  to  the  old  prophets  and  by  them  uttered  as 
God's  word  to  men.  They  said,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  and 
without  doubt  they  believed  that  he  spoke  through  them.  I 
know  of  no  reason  why  it  may  not  have  been  so.  I  have  great 
faith  in  the  power  of  the  spirit  of  God  to  speak  to  men  through 
human  instruments  that  he  may  control.  But  this  is  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  dictation  of  a  mere  narrative  of  historical  facts, 
to  be  written  out  by  penmen  acting  in  a  mere  clerical  way,  and 
very  different,  too,  from  a  spiritual  guidance  of  the  minds  of 
the  writers  so  that  they  would  unconsciously  be  kept  from 
error.  That  is  all  that  I  care  to  question. 

What,  then,  is  the  Bible?  The  Old  Testament  is  the 
religious  history  of  the  Jews,  written  by  themselves,  and  cher- 
ished and  revered  as  every  nation  would  cherish  and  revere  its 
own  history.  It  is  not  known  by  whom  the  various  books 
were  written.  It  is  well  settled  that  those  ascribed  to  Moses 
were  not  written  by  him.  The  books,  for  they  should  be 
called  books  rather  than  the  book,  were  made  up  of  a  great 
many  fragments,  brought  together  by  Jewish  Rabbis  and 
Scribes,  and  which  came  from  their  nature  and  age  to  be  held 


MY  THEOLOGY.  293 

in  great  reverence  by  the  Jews.  The  ancient  histories  of  all 
nations  have  their  legends,  which  came  to  fill  a  large  place 
in  their  traditions,  and  which  were  generally  the  magnifying 
of  some  memorable  occurrence.  The  Jewish  history  has  thus 
its  legends,  more  numerous  and  improbable  from  the  very  re- 
mote past  in  which  the  history  had  its  beginning.  The  creation 
of  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  is  one  of  them. 
The  stopping  of  the  sun  by  Joshua  is  another.  That  can 
never  have  occurred,  even  if  we  regard  it  as  merely  a  stopping 
of  the  earth  in  its  revolution,  for  it  would  have  carried  the 
whole  solar  system  into  wreck,  and  besides  would  have  been 
noticed  and  recorded  by  other  nations,  especially  those  who, 
like  the  Egyptians,  were  familiar  with  astronomy.  The  story 
of  the  deluge  and  the  ark  is  another  legend.  Such  a  deluge, 
covering  the  highest  mountain  peaks,  was  a  physical  impos- 
sibility, while  the  collecting  of  representatives  of  all  the  animals 
on  the  earth,  with  provisions  for  their  sustenance,  and  the 
preservation  of  their  lives  and  the  lives  of  all  Noah's  family  in 
the  noxious  air  of  so  scant  and  overcrowded  a  space  and  for  so 
long  a  time,  would  have  been  an  equal  impossibility.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  basis  for  the  legend  in  the  preva- 
lence of  an  enormous  flood  on  the  earth,  of  which  other  nations 
have  their  traditions.  The  idea  that  all  these  fables  were  in- 
spired by  God  is  degrading  to  him  and  tends  to  produce  an 
utter  distrust  of  all  inspiration  and  all  Scripture.  All  who 
would  have  our  respect  for  the  Bible  preserved,  should  be  out- 
spoken in  their  relegation  of  these  impossible  stories  to  the 
domain  of  legend.  The  New  Testament  is  a  far  more  modern 
book  and  is  not  open  to  so  much  criticism  and  distrust  as  the 
ancient  Scriptures.  But  the  four  gospels,  on  which  we  rely 
for  the.  story  of  the  wonderful  life  and  teachings  of  Christ  and 
of  his  early  and  tragic  death,  were  written  so  long  after  the 
death  of  Christ,  and  have  so  uncertain  a  history,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  feel  absolutely  sure  of  their  details,  either  of  acts 
on  his  part  or  (and  perhaps  especially)  of  his  words.  We  get 
from  them  enough  to  show  what  an  exalted  character  Christ 
was,  what  a  marvelous  spiritual  comprehension  and  experience 
he  had,  and  what  words  of  wisdom  he  spoke.  He  will  always 
remain  to  us  our  great  example,  and  our  leader  in  all  our  efforts 


294 


REMINISCENCES. 


to  perfect  ourselves  in  a  godly  life  and  to  bring-  others  to  such  a 
life. 

I  read  a  portion  of  the  Scriptures  every  day,  and  while  there 
are  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  that  could  have  been  written 
only  in  an  age  of  brutality  and  which  are  horrible  to  read,  and 
for  the  writing  of  which  I  am  sure  God  was  in  no  way  re- 
sponsible, yet  I  read  a  great  deal  that  is  wonderful  in  its 
presentation  of  divine  truth  and  wisdom  and  in  the  record  of  the 
earthly  experiences  of  godly  men.  The  Bible  has  no  more  real 
enemies  than  those  who  claim  for  it  verbal  inspiration  and  in- 
errancy. The  intelligence  of  the  age  will  not  accept  this  claim 
and  the  whole  book  is  made  to  feel  the  discredit  of  the  false 
assumption.  The  true  friends  of  the  Bible  are  those  who  look 
upon  it  as  literature,  and,  as  such,  as  the  history  of  the  most 
godly  nation  that  lived  in  its  time  on  the  earth. 

6.  Creeds.  I  do  not  believe  in  creeds.  I  think  it  was  never 
intended  that  Christian  churches  should  be  built  upon  creeds. 
Religion,  as  I  have  said  before,  and  as  our  wisest  religious 
teachers  tell  us,  is  a  matter  of  life  and  not  of  belief.  All  that 
I  would  require  as  a  declaration  of  faith  is  a  belief  in  "  the 
Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man."  I  would 
have  our  covenants  something  like  this,  and  with  nothing 
more :  "  We  desire  to  lead  the  Christian  life,  and  we  seek  the 
help  of  our  fellow  Christians  in  trying  to  attain  that  life  and 
promise  them  what  help  we  can  give  them  in  their  efforts  to  at- 
tain it." 

I  believe  that  before  another  century  has  passed,  and  per- 
haps before  the  next  century  has  reached  its  culmination,  the 
best  religious  organizations  of  the  Christian  world  will  have 
accepted  a  theology  substantially  like  that  I  have  outlined  in 
the  foregoing  article.  Dogmas  will  have  ceased  to  dominate 
the  religious  mind.  Men  will  have  learned  to  love  one  an- 
other, and  through  such  human  love  will  be  all  the  more  ready 
to  love  God.  All  that  is  repulsive  in  the  old  idea  of  God  will 
have  given  way  before  the  idea  of  God's  love  to  his  children. 
The  world  grows  slowly  out  of  its  old  errors  and  delusions, 
but  such  a  change  of  religious  belief  will  mightily  help  it  for- 
ward towards  it  redemption  from  the  dominion  of  evil. 


MY  RELIGION. 


295 


Nothing  promises  more  for  this  result  than  the  growing 
prevalence  in  the  Christian  world  of  what  is  known  as  "  liberal 
Christianity."  By  this  I  mean  religion  as  Christ  taught  it. 
That  which  is  generally  accepted  as  Christianity  should  have 
been  called  "  Paulism."  It  is  founded  wholly  on  what  Paul 
taught,  and  not  on  what  Christ  taught.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  Christ  could  be  called  a  Christian,  if  we  judge  him 
wholly  by  his  teachings.  The  Christian  world  needs  to  revise 
its  religious  opinions.  The  revision  has  earnestly  begun,  and 
I  feel  confident  it  will  continue  until  the  religious  world  finds 
the  whole  of  its  religion  in  the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of 
man. 

MY  RELIGION. 

I  draw  a  clear  line  between  my  Theology  and  my  Religion. 
One  is  a  matter  for  the  intellect,  the  other  for  the  heart.  If  a 
man's  heart  is  right,  I  feel  sure  of  his  salvation,  whatever  his 
opinions  may  be.  He  may  be  utterly  uncivilized,  and  even 
what  we  call  a  heathen,  and  yet,  if  his  heart  is  right,  I  am  sure 
that  neither  his  ignorance  nor  his  superstition  will  endanger 
his  salvation.  By  opinions  I  mean,  of  course,  honest  opinions. 
A  wilful  perversity  of  thinking,  a  pride  of  false  opinion,  are  not 
consistent  with  honesty.  An  honest  thinker  will  have  lost 
much  by  his  misconceptions  of  truth,  for  truth  is  full  of  nutri- 
tion for  both  mind  and  heart,  but  he  will  not  have  lost  his  soul. 
The  whole  question  comes  to  character,  the  importance  of 
which,  in  determining  one's  condition  in  the  future  life,  is 
transcendant.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  that  character  must 
be  perfect,  but  it  must  have  been  making  a  constant  and 
earnest  effort  to  be  perfect. 

God  made  us  merely  human.  He  knew  what  a  weak  thing 
a  human  being  is,  and  yet  he  chose  to  make  a  world  that  should 
be  inhabited  by  such  beings,  and  to  fill  it  with  evil  temptations 
and  opportunities.  And  now,  when  we  wander  away  into  sin, 
he  is  not  watching  in  anger  to  detect  us,  but  with  the  guardian 
eye  of  a  father  to  restrain  and  save  us,  and  his  feeling  towards 
us  is  one  of  sorrow,  and  not  of  that  rage  of  which  the  theological 
professor,  of  whom  I  spoke  in  the  last  chapter,  gave  us  such  a 
dreadful  picture.  He  never  forgets  that  we  are  his  children, 


296  REMINISCENCES 

sent  here  to  be  trained,  not  to  be  tested,  and  is  full  of  patience 
and  of  mercy. 

Now,  do  not  let  it  be  supposed  that  I  am  excusing  sin  and 
helping  the  wrongdoer  to  an  easier  conscience  and  to  a  less 
restrained  life.  I  think  that  no  earthly  calamity  that  can  be- 
fall a  man  can  be  compared  to  that  of  a  life  of  wilful  sin.  If 
one  has  been  a  prodigal  son  he  may  abandon  his  reckless  life 
and  return  to  his  father's  house  and  be  welcomed  back.  His 
past  sins  will  be  forgiven.  They  will  have  made  a  scar  upon 
his  soul  that  it  may  take  years  of  growth  to  efface,  but  God's 
mercy  will  have  forgiven  him.  But  he  must  be  an  honestly 
returned  prodigal.  There  can  be  no  half-way  reformation,  no 
compromise  between  duty  and  self-indulgence.  Such  thor- 
oughly reformed  men  may  become  some  of  our  best  men. 
They  have  been  some  of  the  best  saints  and  martyrs  in  the 
world's  history. 

Now,  what  is  the  religion  that  has  this  preserving  and  res- 
cuing power  —  the  religion  that  is  so  essential  to  our  true  hap- 
piness here  and  hereafter?  The  best  answer  that  I  can  find  is 
the  following  passage  in  the  Epistle  of  James,  Chap.  I,  v.  27: 
"  Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  is  this  —  To  visit  the 
fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep  himself 
unspotted  from  the  world."  Let  it  be  noted  that  this  is  not 
from  any  of  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament,  whose  earnest 
words  were  all  to  the  same  effect,  but  who  spoke  before  the 
death  of  Christ  had,  as  theologians  claim,  brought  a  new  ele- 
ment into  personal  religion,  but  was  written  by  one  of  the 
apostles,  who  had  been  taught  by  Christ  himself,  and  who 
stood  in  a  position  of  special  authority  among  his  commis- 
sioned representatives,  and  was  written,  too,  after  the  death  of 
Christ  had  completed  his  earthly  work  for  men.  And  this 
definition  of  the  apostle  brings  in  the  two  elements  that  make 
up  the  formula  of  religious  life  and  belief  that  I  think  will  ulti- 
mately be  accepted  by  the  church  and  become  its  only  creed 
-"the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Man." 
The  latter  is  clearly  expressed  in  the  sympathetic  and  helpful 
visiting  of  the  fatherless  and  widows,  and  the  former  in  that 
loving  obedience  to  God's  commands  which  will  keep  one  from 
the  pollutions  of  sinful  life.  The  fatherhood  of  God  is,  how- 


MY  RELIGION. 


297 


ever,  more  directly  declared  in  innumerable  passages  of  both 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and  especially  by  Christ  himself. 

And  here  is  all  my  religion.  I  think  I  have  never  failed  in 
brotherly  love  of  my  fellow  men.  The  greatest  pain  of  my  life 
grows  out  of  my  knowledge  of  their  many  sufferings.  In  a 
book  of  daily  religious  reading  ("  Daily  Strength  for  Daily 
Needs,"  a  book  unsurpassed  for  its  purpose),  I  find  that,  at  a 
place  where  a  Christian  writer  is  quoted  as  saying  "  Ask  God 
to  increase  your  power  of  sympathy,"  I  have  written  on  the 
margin,  "  I  have  to  ask  God  to  give  me  less  power  of  sym- 
pathy." Indeed,  one  of  the  most  awful  mysteries  that  con- 
front me  in  the  divine  administration  is  that  of  a  fatherly  God, 
whose  power  is  unlimited,  allowing  his  children  to  suffer  as 
they  so  often  do,  and  looking  down  calmly  upon  it,  when  my 
own  distress  at  the  sight  is  almost  unendurable.  I  can  see  why 
he  has  allowed  sin  to  come  into  the  world.  We  should  be 
miserably  flabby  creatures  if  we  were  kept  good  wholly  by 
divine  power,  with  no  choice  of  our  own  wills.  And  I  can 
only  hope  that  in  the  case  of  innocent  sufferers  there  is  some 
loving  and  compensating  purpose  that  in  our  ignorance  we 
cannot  understand.  We  can  only  hope  and  trust,  doing  con- 
stantly all  that  we  can  for  the  relief  of  the  suffering  and  the 
comfort  of  the  sorrowing,  but  leaving  the  outcome  and  result 
to  God. 

As  to  keeping  ourselves  unspotted  from  the  world:  I  have 
treated  this  as  a  recognition  of  our  relation  to  God,  who  re- 
quires it  of  us,  and  who  is  ever  ready  to  help  us  in  our  struggles 
with  temptation.  "  The  eyes  of  the  Lord  run  to  and  fro 
throughout  the  whole  earth  to  show  himself  strong  in  behalf 
of  him  whose  heart  is  perfect  toward  him."  (2  Chron.,  16,  9.) 
But  I  have  often  seen  men  of  whom  it  might  be  said  that  they 
kept  themselves  unstained  by  the  pollutions  of  the  world,  who 
yet  did  not  clearly  recognize  and  consciously  love  God. 
What  shall  be  said  of  them?  Some  of  the  best  men  I  have 
known,  honest,  benevolent,  earnest  in  moral  work,  have  yet 
said  to  me  that  they  could  not  form  any  conception  of  God, 
and  of  course  could  not  love  him.  And  it  is  difficult  for  one  to 
form  a  conception  of  God  that  is  not  vague,  and  to  feel  toward 
such  an  indefinite  and  uncomprehended  being  anything  like 


20 


298  REMINISCENCES. 

the  emotions  of  love  which  a  child  feels  for  its  mother  who  is 
holding  it  in  her  arms,  or  that  two  loving  friends  feel  for  each 
other.  I  got  great  comfort  years  ago  from  a  very  thoughtful 
sermon  which  I  heard  on  this  very  subject.  It  told  us  that  the 
test  is  this :  Do  we  love  the  things  that  God  loves  ?  I  can- 
not feel  any  doubt  that  I  do  this.  It  was  impressed  very 
strongly  upon  my  mind  by  an  experience  which  I  had  in 
London  a  few  years  ago.  I  was  very  intimate  there  with  Dr. 
John  Chapman,  with  whom  I  was  staying.  I  have  devoted  a 
short  chapter  to  him,  ante,  p.  205.  He  was  chief  editor  of  the 
Westminster  Review,  and  a  man  of  rare  intellect  and  most 
lovable  personal  qualities.  But  he  did  not  believe  in  the  ex- 
istence of  God,  nor  in  a  future  life ;  and  at  one  time  while  I  was 
with  him,  and  had  been  admiring  the  clearness  and  apparent 
honesty  of  his  mind,  the  thought  seized  me  and  for  some  time 
held  possession  of  me,  like  the  fastening  of  a  vampire  upon 
one's  respiration,  may  he  not  be  right?  I  wandered  for  a 
morning  about  the  London  streets  at  the  mercy  of  that  malign 
possession  and  looking  aghast  upon  the  possible  desolating 
anarchy.  But  through  it  all  it  never  came  into  my  mind  that 
I  would  escape  a  fearful  accountability  and  find  myself  ad- 
mitted to  a  freer  and  less  restrained  life.  My  whole  thought 
was  that  the  world  must  be  saved  by  all  the  harder  work  of 
those  of  us  who  loved  righteousness.  It  looked  like  a  des- 
perate fight  on  our  part,  but  the  idea  of  letting  up  a  particle  in 
the  fight  never  occurred  to  me.  And  I  came  to  see  clearly,  as 
if  a  divine  revelation  had  disclosed  it  to  me,  that  my  accounta- 
bility, in  its  most  fearful  aspect,  was  an  accountability  to  my- 
self, and  ever  since  then  that  has  been  my  sole  sense  of  ac- 
countability —  the  certainty  that  in  the  revealing  light  of  the 
spirit  world  I  have  got  to  look  myself  in  the  face  and  answer 
my  own  searching  and  merciless  questions.  God  is  our 
Father,  and  will  look  on  our  shortcomings  with  pity  and 
mercy,  but  I  expect  no  mercy  from  myself.  Here  is  the  Hell 
of  bad  men  —  self-condemnation  and  bitter  self-reproach.  I 
lay  very  ill  a  few  years  ago,  but  with  my  mind  clear  and  in- 
tensely active,  and  my  memory  wandering  like  a  skilled  de- 
tective over  the  whole  field  of  my  life.  I  cannot  tell  with  what 
comfort  I  was  able  to  see  that  my  entire  life  had  been  a  morally 


UPBUILDING   Ofi   A    STATE. 


299 


clean  one,  and  that  I  had  not  been  intentionally  guilty  of  un- 
kindness  or  wrong,  but  had  been  unselfish  and  generous  and 
full  of  the  spirit  of  helpfulness  to  others,  while  I  had  from 
my  boyhood  been  most  scrupulous  to  avoid  leading  others 
astray  by  word  or  example.  If  I  had  led  a  dissolute  or  dis- 
honest life  I  think  I  should  have  gone  insane  upon  the  re- 
view of  it. 

And  I  think  that  no  one  who  consciously  and  truly  loves 
those  things  that  God  loves,  and  so  in  a  true  sense  loves  God, 
ever  has  to  fall  back  upon  his  moral  principles  to  strengthen 
him  in  his  effort  to  do  the  right  and  avoid  the  wrong.  He 
does  what  is  right  solely  because  he  loves  it,  just  as  God 
loves  it;  he  refuses  to  do  the  wrong  solely  because  he  abhors 
it,  just  as  God  abhors  it.  God  never  has  to  fall  back  upon 
moral  principles.  He  acts  only  on  a  great,  wise,  loving  will, 
and  when  we  do  the  same  we  may  be  satisfied  that  God  accepts 
our  consecrated  desires  as  the  truest  love  to  him,  although  we 
may  have  no  clear  conception  of  him  as  a  spirit,  and  no  con- 
scious love  of  him  as  our  Father. 

Thus,  by  our  conformity  to  that  highest  ideal  of  a  godly 
life  and  by  our  spirit  of  love  and  helpfulness  toward  our  fellow 
men,  we  illustrate  in  our  lives  that  pure  and  undefiled  religion 
which  the  apostle,  describes  as  "  the  visiting  of  the  fatherless 
and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  the  keeping  one's  self  un- 
spotted from  the  world." 

THE  UPBUILDING  OF  A  STATE. 

The  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  adoption 
of  the  first  constitution  of  Connecticut  was  celebrated  at  Hart- 
ford on  January  24,  1889.  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  H.  Twichell  de- 
livered an  address  of  great  interest  in  the  Center  Church  of  the 
city,  before  a  crowded  house,  and  in  the  evening  a  meeting  was 
held  at  Allyn  Hall,  at  which  numerous  speeches  were  made. 
I  had  agreed  to  take  part  in  the  exercises  of  the  evening,  and 
prepared  for  the  purpose  the  following  address  on  the  "  Up- 
building of  a  State,"  which  I  read  at  the  meeting.  I  express 
in  it  some  ideas  which  I  think  very  important,  and  am  glad  to 
put  myself  on  record  as  having  held  and  declared  them. 


300  REMINISCENCES. 

The  planting  of  a  State  is  always  a  subject  of  interest.  Its 
history  is  generally  one  of  adventure  and  heroism,  and  we  read  it 
as  we  would  a  romance.  This  is  generally  so  where  mere  tem- 
poral advantage  was  the  ruling  motive,  but  the  subject  becomes 
one  of  profound  interest  where  there  predominated  a  great  moral 
purpose.  Such  a  purpose  entered  into  the  planting  of  our  State, 
and  of  all  New  England,  even  though  they  did  not  dream  they 
were  sowing  the  seeds  of  empire,  and  we  do  well  to  honor  these 
noble  founders.  They  were  wise  men  in  their  day,  and  laid  foun- 
dations deep  and  strong,  and  we  may  study  the  history  of  the 
time  for  the  mere  wisdom  that  it  teaches.  But  we  miss  its  great 
lesson  if  we  do  not  study,  and  understand,  and  become  inspired 
by,  the  spirit  of  those  grand  men.  They  came  here  in  the  fear  of 
God,  and  holding  their  first  allegiance  due  to  him.  And,  though 
they  had  a  perpetual  struggle  for  existence  against  savages, 
against  most  rigorous  winters,  against  the  most  scanty  supplies 
of  the  necessaries  of  life,  they  found  time  and  heart  to  look  to  the 
future,  and  felt  their  responsibility  for  the  character  of  that  future. 
The  church,  the  school,  the  college,  a  wise  system  of  govern- 
ment —  all  that  could  affect  the  moral  welfare  of  their  descend- 
ants—  these  were  the  things  that  they  thought  of  and  labored 
for.  They  had  sometimes  their  petty  ambitions,  their  jealousies 
and  rivalries,  for  they  were  but  human  ;  but  there  was  a  great 
pervading  enthusiasm  to  establish  an  intelligent  and  God-fearing 
people.  All  honor,  therefore,  to  those  brave,  good  men. 

Bnt  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  we  are  all,  in  a  sense,  if  not 
founders,  yet  builders.  We,  as  they,  build  for  the  next  generation, 
and  the  next,  and  the  great  lesson  we  are  to  learn  from  them  is, 
that  we  are  to  build,  as  they  did,  with  a  great  moral  purpose.  No 
man  can  live  for  himself  alone  ;  but  we  may  make  our  lives 
morally  worthless  if  we  live  in  the  mere  present,  seekihg  our  own 
personal  success  in  life,  and  not  striving  to  make  the  world  better 
for  our  having  lived  in  it.  There  are  noble  men  and  women 
living  to-day,  grand  souls,  who,  by  their  toil  and  self-sacrifice, 
have  helped  to  set  the  world  forward,  But  how  manifest  is  it  that 
the  vast  majority  of  men,  even  in  this  Christian  land,  and  men  of 
intelligence  and  social  position,  are  living  but  little  above  a  mate- 
rial plane ;  certainly  with  no  thought  of  any  allegiance  owed  to 
God,  or  of 'any  duty  to  make  warfare  upon  the  powers  of  evil. 

Let  us  then  be  builders  with  a  high  moral  purpose.  All  this  is 
easy  exhortation  ;  almost  commonplace.  But  I  beg  you,  in  the 


UPBUILDING   OF  A  STATE. 


301 


few  minutes  allowed  me,  to  follow  me  through  a  certain  philoso- 
ophy  that  attends  the  matter  of  building  up  a  truly  Christian 
society. 

1.  And,  in  the  first  place,  the  work  of  up-building  is  a  work  of 
Reform.     The  true  builder  is  a  reformer.     The  reform  of  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  reaching  then  the  highwater  mark  of  the  pro- 
gressive thought  of  the  time,  becomes  the  conservatism  of  to-day, 
and  the  reformer  of  to-day  must  build  higher.     The  true  reformer 
is  not,  necessarily,  an  iconoclast.     Sometimes  he  has  to  be.     Thus 
the  reformer  Hezekiah  "  brake  in  pieces  the  brazen  serpent  that 
Moses  had  made,  for  the  children  of  Israel  did  burn  incense  to  it ; 
and  he  called  it  Nehustan,"  —  that  is  —  only  a  piece  of  brass.     It 
once  represented  a  vital  truth,  but  the  life  had  all  gone  out  of  it, 
and  the  Jews  had  made  a  mere  fetish  of  it.     But  in  the  composi- 
tion of  a  genuine  reformer  there  is,  ordinarily,  no  quality  of  de- 
structiveness.     He  is,  in  the  truest  sense,  a  builder.     So  far  as  he 
would  destroy  some  entrenched  wrong,  it  is  merely  the  over- 
throw of  that  which  is  itself  a  usurpation  and  the  re-establishment 
of  that  which  is  a  dethroned  right,  or  which  rests  upon  clear,  but 
disregarded,  principles  of  right.     This  is  illustrated  in  the  over- 
throw of  slavery  in  this  country.     The  spirit  which  assailed  it 
was  not  one   of  destructiveness,  but  a  spirit  of  up-building,  of 
lifting  dethroned  manhood  to  its  rightful  place.     The  ordinary 
idea  of  a  reformer  is  of  a  pugnacious  man,  who  carries  around  a 
moral  shillalah  ;    whereas,  in  fact,  he  is  generally  a  member  of  a 
peace   society  ;  or   of  a  morose   and  gloomy  man  ;    whereas,  he 
may  be,  and  sometimes  is,  overflowing  with  wit  and  humor,  and 
the  best  sort  of  company.     All  that  specially  marks  him  is  a  burn- 
ing enthusiasm  for  humanity.     I  know  no  truer  women,  in  all 
that  goes  to  make  true  womanhood,  than  those  who,   as  the 
Women's  Christian  Temperance   Union,  are   carrying  on  a  war 
against  the  saloons. 

2.  The  true  reformer,  in  the  second  place,  is  never  satisfied 
with  mere  expedients  and  makeshifts.      These  have  their  place, 
and  it  is  often  absolutely  necessary  to  resort  to  them.     But  when 
the  immediate  exigency  is  passed,  the  true  reformer  goes  to  work 
to  remove  the  cause.     He  considers  not  merely  conditions,  but 
theories.      He  studies   and  seeks  to  apply  fundamental    princi- 
ples.    Compromises  are  often  not  only  expedient,  but  just.     They 
enter  largely  into  the  framework  of  society.     But  a  compromise 
with  some  vice,  no  matter  how  entrenched,  merely  postpones  an 


302  REMINISCENCES. 

inevitable  struggle  with  it.  Unsettled  questions  of  right,  it  has 
been  said,  have  no  mercy  for  the  peace  of  nations.  Compromises 
with  slavery  only  postponed,  and  in  the  end  made  more  terrible, 
the  final  death  struggle  of  freedom  with  it.  When  the  anarchists 
were  hung  in  Chicago,  their  execution  was  an  expedient.  No 
wrong,  fancied  or  real,  could  justify  their  dynamite  war  on 
society,  and  there  was  no  way  but  to  deal  with  them  with  a  strong 
hand.  But  the  danger  to  society  from  the  anarchy  of  the  hovel 
is  not  so  great  as  that  from  the  anarchy  of  the  palace.  There 
will  always  be  a  determination  to  suppress  disorder.  Life,  prop- 
erty,, all  prosperity,  rest  for  their  security  on  social  order,  and  the 
nation  would  rise  by  a  common  impulse  to  put  down  any  organ- 
ized attack  upon  it.  But  the  most  dangerous  anarchy  —  and  the 
more  dangerous  because  it  does  not  come  in  conflict  with  the 
spirit  of  order  —  is  that  of  the  men,  who,  by  combination  and  by 
the  power  of  money,  control  our  legislation,  or  pervert  it  where 
they  cannot  wholly  control  it,  or  where  they  can  do  neither, 
lubricate,  by  the  use  of  their  money,  some  hole  of  escape.  They 
do  not  terrorize  society  ;  it  is  no  part  of  their  object  to  terrorize 
anybody  ;  but  the  thoughtful  lover  of  his  country,  and  of  equality 
and  justice,  looks  on  with  the  gravest  apprehension.  When  the 
true  builder  of  society  has  discharged  his  painful  duty  toward  the 
men  of  violence  and  blood,  he  addresses  himself  to  his  higher  and 
more  serious  duty  to  this  more  dangerous  class,  and  sees  that  a 
correction  of  what  is  wrong  here  will  largely  remove  the  cause  of 
the  plebeian  anarchy. 

3.  The  true  reformer,  in  the  third  place,  builds  upon  the 
foundation  of  old  ideas,  but  the  superstructure  is  of  new  ideas,  or 
of  ideas  that  have  been  overlooked  or  lost,  and  are  practically  new 
to  the  age.  The  case  is  not  unlike  that  of  our  wonderful  inven- 
tions and  material  improvements  of  all  sorts.  These  are  gener- 
ally but  new  uses  of  natural  forces  that  have  existed  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world.  And  upon  our  discoveries  and  inven- 
tions a  later  age  will  build  a  like  superstructure  of  its  own.  This 
is  true  evolution.  So  it  is  with  moral  and  religious  ideas.  The 
old  Roman  who,  as  a  magistrate,  could  coolly  condemn  his  son  to 
death,  could  never  have  got  from  the  declarations  of  Scripture  as 
to  God's  fatherly  love  the  same  conception  of  it  that  a  father 
to-day  gets.  The  new  conception,  as  compared  with  the  old,  is 
practically  a  new  truth.  Yet  the  ideas  of  both  would  have  the 
same  foundation.  So  I  say  we  build  in  our  day  with  ideas  that 


UPBUILDING   OF  A    STATE.  303 

are  practically  new  in  our  day,  though  all  resting  on  old  founda- 
tions. Take  the  religious  dogmas  of  two  centuries  ago  ;  where 
are  many  of  them  to-day?  and  even  some  of  those  most  tena- 
ciously held  ?  yet  all  were  built,  according  to  the  intelligence  of 
the  age,  on  that  everlasting  foundation,  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

Our  Lord  told  us  that  the  Spirit  of  Truth  would  come  (involv- 
ing the  idea  of  a  new  arrival),  and  would  guide  us  into  all  truth. 
This  involves  the  idea  of  Progression  in  the  guide  and  in  the  fol- 
lower ;  and  progress,  too,  in  truth  itself.  Paul  told  us  to  "  serve 
in  the  newness  of  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the  oldness  of  the  letter." 
The  spirit  is  ever  new  and  ever  progressive,  and  leaves  the  letter 
far  behind.  I  was  once  in  Geneva  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  in 
that  home  of  Calvin  gave  as  a  toast,  "  John  Calvin  as  he  would  be 
if  he  were  here  to-day."  That  grand,  brave,  sturdy  old  man,  if 
here  to-day,  would,  I  verily  believe,  hardly  pass  an  acceptable  ex- 
amination in  Calvinism.  The  world  of  religious  thought  moves, 
though  it  still  revolves  and  will  ever  revolve,  around  the  great 
central  source  of  all  light. 

4.  There  is  a  great  duty  on  the  part  of  sober  and  intelligent 
men,  not  to  stand  aloof  from,  but  to  fraternize  with  and  guide, 
that  less  intelligent,  and  often  too  impatient,  and  so  too  hasty 
and  impetuous,  spirit  of  reform  which  almost  always  shows  itself 
in  connection  with  true  reforms.  It  is  extravagant  and  often 
fanatical,  but  is  well-intentioned  and  needs  to  be  guided  and  not 
discouraged  or  suppressed.  The  world  would  never  move  if 
there  were  not  some  men  so  zealous  as  to  go  too  far.  What  a 
force  there  is,  if  rightly  directed  and  controlled,  in  the  Salvation 
Army.  Benjamin  Du  Plan  —  the  "Gentleman  of  Alais,"  as  he 
was  called,  who  lived  in  the  south  of  France  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  was  a  noble  specimen  of  a  true  reformer  in  the  highest 
social  position  joining  with  extravagant  zealots,  because  he  knew 
they  were  on  the  Lord's  side.  The  Hartford  Courant,  in  an  edi- 
torial notice  of  his  life,  recently  published,  says  :  "  To  be  a  Pro- 
testant was  to  be  an  outcast  in  every  way.  It  was  this  lot  that 
young  Du  Plan  chose  for  his  worldly  portion.  The  reader  will 
not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  there  was  Protestant  fanaticism  as 
well  as  Catholic  bigotry,  and  that  there  were  abnormal  develop- 
ments of  religious  zeal.  Many  women  and  girls  took  up  the  char- 
acter of  prophetesses  and  preachers,  fell  down  in  ecstasies,  and 
went  through  all  the  scandals  of  fantastic  demeanor  and  impos- 
ture. Du  Plan  was  deterred  from  his  choice  neither  by  the  ex- 


304  REMINISCENCES. 

travagance  of  some  of  the  sect,  nor  by  the  persecutions.  //  is 
largely  owing  to  his  labors  that  the  French  Protestant  church  is  alive 
to-day. " 

5.  And  this  brings  me,  in  the  fifth  place,  to  a  point  which  I 
conceive  it  to  be  very  important  to  have  fully  understood.  It  is 
that  new  ideas,  especially  on  moral  and  religious  subjects,  which 
are  finally  accepted  as  God's  own  truth,  find  at  the  outset  their 
most  determined  antagonists  in  the  church  and  among  really 
good  men.  I  am  not  speaking  against  good  men  as  such  ;  to 
nobody  are  they  dearer  than  to  me.  I  am  not  speaking  against 
the  church  ;  few  love  the  church  more.  But  I  am  speaking  of  a 
fact,  and  speaking  from  the  study  of  history  and  the  observations 
of  a  long  life.  The  fact  seems  on  its  face  almost  incomprehensi- 
ble, yet  is  easily  explained. 

In  the  first  place,  almost  every  advance  is  in  the  direction  of 
larger  liberty  —  liberty  of  thought,  liberty  of  action,  of  less 
responsibility  to  mere  law  and  more  to  one's  own  soul,  the 
grandest  of  responsibilities.  Now  liberty  is  near  neighbor  to 
license,  and  every  man  of  loose  morals  takes  the  side  of  liberty 
against  restraint.  And  not  merely  the  bad  men,  but  all  the  men 
of  courageous  thinking  who  have  already  antagonized  prevailing 
beliefs.  Take  the  universal  belief  of  a  hundred  years  ago  that 
the  world  was  made  in  six  days,  by  six  successive  fiats  of  God, 
and  that  the  Scripture  so  taught;  Thirty  years  after  science  had 
clearly  established  the  fact  that  the  world  was  thousands  of  years 
in  being  made,  there  were  probably  twenty  outside  of  the 
churches  who  accepted  this  as  the  truth  where  there  was  one  in 
the  churches.  And  the  former  were  regarded  as  little  better 
than  infidels.  But  God's  truth  was  with  the  infidels,  and  the 
error  was  with  his  people.  Again,  take  the  question  of  future 
probation.  (I  do  not  propose  to  touch  the  merits  of  the  question.) 
Almost  every  bad  man  favors  the  idea.  He  sees  in  it  deliverance 
for  himself.  He  sees  in  it  license.  Yet  the  man  who  desires  only 
to  know  what  is  God's  truth  on  the  subject  is  allowing  himself  to 
be  led  astray  if  he  lets  himself  be  influenced  by  the  consideration 
that  all  bad  -men  accept  the  new  idea  and  the  great  majority  of 
good  men  reject  it.  Early  in  this  century  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,. 
one  of  the  noblest  men  England  has  ever  known,  then  a  member 
of  Parliament,  set  out  to  reform  the  criminal  law  of  England  by 
abolishing  the  death  penalty  for  petty  offenses.  A  body  of  acts 
which,  voted  down  overwhelmingly  at  first,  he  by  great  effort 


UPBUILDING   OF  A   STATE.  305 

and  long  persistence  finally  got  passed,  is  known  as  the  "Romilly 
Acts,"  and  England  is  to-day  proud  of  them,  and  not  one  vote  in 
ten  thousand  could  be  got  for  going  back  to  the  old  law.  Yet 
when  he  began  all  society  was  against  him  —  and  the  church  with 
the  rest.  There  was  a  universal  belief  that  any  letting  up  of  pen- 
alty would  only  increase  crime.  And  who  were  with  him  ?  Some 
good  men  were  early  gained  over  ;  but  every  thief,  every  robber, 
every  vile  man  and  woman,  was  on  his  side.  Yet  God  was  on  the 
same  side  with  the  thieves,  and  not  with  his  people. 

There  is  another  reason  why  the  church  and  good  men  are 
thrown  into  antagonism  to  nascent  truth.  The  church  rests  on 
old  ideas.  Its  people  have  been  brought  up  on  them.  They 
think  them  everlasting  truths,  and  that  they  embrace  all  truth. 
They  cannot  realize  that  the  kingship  never  dies,  though  the 
scepter  may  pass  to  new  hands. 

A  worn-out  dogma  died.     Around  its  bed 
Its  votaries  wept  as  if  all  truth  were  dead. 
But  heaven-born  truth  is  an  immortal  thing. 
Hark,  how  its  lieges  give  it  welcoming  — 
"The  King  is  Dead  —  Long  live  the  King."* 

So  the  moment  a  new  idea  is  brought  before  these  good  peo- 
ple which  seems  to  conflict  with  what  they  have  been  taught, 
they  bristle  against  it.  Without  ever  examining  the  question 
they  take  a  position  of  antagonism  to  it.  There  is  often  much  to 
respect  in  this  spontaneous  rallying  to  the  defense  of  old  truths 
to  which  they  feel  that  they  owe  an  unhesitating  and  unquestioning 
allegiance.  I  have  more  respect  for  a  bigot  than  for  a  mere  sur- 
face indifferentist.  And  then  these  same  defenders  of  the  church 
look  out  upon  the  supporters  of  the  new  idea  and  see  a  motley 
group  of  all  sorts  —  broad  religionists,  cavillers,  agnostics,  and, 
beyond  these,  all  sorts  of  bad  men,  and  they  think  that  nothing 
can  be  clearer  than  that  they  are  on  the  Lord's  side.  Yet,  in 
most  cases,  a  half-century  later  the  church  will  have  accepted 
the  new  idea  as  God's  truth. 

Let  it  be  understood,  then,  that  as  an  almost  universal  rule, 
new  truths  come  with  a  great  discredit.  It  is  right  that  there 
should  be  a  strong  presumption  against  them,  and  to  require  that 
they  be  supported  by  a  large  preponderance  of  proof.  But  it  is 


*  These  lines  and  those  on  page  307  have  already  appeared  in  the  chapter  on 
"Bits  of  Verse."  When  that  chapter  was  printed  I  had  not  decided  to  insert  the 
present  chapter. 


3o6  REMINISCENCES. 

more  than  this.  They  encounter  a  strong,  unreasoning,  often 
bitter,  prejudice  ;  a  prejudice  that  1  think  is  hateful  to  God  ;  for  I 
believe  that  God  loves  above  all  others  the  man  who  loves  truth, 
and  is  willing  to  suffer,  and,  if  need  be,  to  die  for  it.  God  makes 
his  truths  stand  upon  their  own  foundation,  not  on  the  patronage 
of  the  church  or  society.  The  New  York  Nation  said  some  time 
ago,  in  an  article  on  Garrison,  that  no  one  not  living  at  that  time 
could  have  any  idea  of  the  state  of  public  opinion  when  that 
reformer  began  his  work.  It  was  a  few  fanatics  on  one  side  and 
all  society  on  the  other.  I  know  that  to  be  the  fact,  for  I  was  my- 
self one  of  the  fanatics.  Where  is  society  now  ?  The  old 
prophets,  with  their  long  hair,  their  garments  of  sackcloth,  and 
their  denunciatory  proclamations  in  the  market  places,  were  the 
"  cranks  "  of  their  time,  and  very  repulsive  ones  too  ;  yet  God 
made  them  his  mouthpiece.  What  more  uncouth  than  John  the 
Baptist,  wearing  a  goat  skin  and  living  on  locusts  and  wild  honey 
as  he  wandered  about ;  and  yet  he  was  the  forerunner  and  herald 
of  Christ.  And  when  Christ  came  he  was  called  a  glutton  and 
wine-bibber,  and  was  despised  and  rejected  of  men.  Hear  what 
Paul  says  : 

"Not  many  wise  after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not  many 
noble  are  called  ;  but  God  hath  chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the 
world  that  he  might  put  to  shame  them  that  are  wise;  and  God  hath 
chosen  the  weak  things  of  the  world,  that  he  might  put  to  shame 
things  that  are  strong  ;  and  the  base  things  of  the  world  and  the 
things  that  are  despised  hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and  things  which 
are  not,  to  bring  to  naught  the  things  that  are."  I  Cor.,  i,  26-7-8. 

All  who  come  to  save  the  world  must  expect  to  be  assailed  as 
gluttons  and  wine-bibbers,  or  with  other  terms  of  contempt ;  but 
they  will  be  none  the  less  the  commissioned  servants  of  God. 
Remember,  then,  ye  who  would  be  builders  for  God  in  the  state, 
in  society,  in  the  church,  that  you  are  to  encounter  the  sneers  of 
society  and  the  antagonism  of  that  church  which  is  dear  to  us  all, 
and  are  to  find  hosts  of  supporters  with  whom  you  have  little  in 
common,  many  of  whom  you  must  regard  with  utter  disgust,  but 
are  to  have  the  great  comfort  of  feeling  that  God  is  with  you,  and 
that  the  future  will  bless  you.  Christ  was  willing  for  the  sake  of 
truth  to  become  of  "no  reputation."  Are  we  ? 

But  let  us  be  comforted  with  the  assurance  that  the  toil  and 
self-abnegation  and  self-sacrifice  of  noble  and  consecrated  souls 
will  not  be  lost.  Under  a  great  divine  purpose,  that  has  run 


APPEAL    TO    YOUNG  MEN. 


307 


through  the  ages,  the  world  is  moving  on  to  the  completeness  of 
its  deliverance.  All  redemptions  come  by  crucifixions.  Blessed 
are  the  crucified.  Christ  told  his  followers  that  in  the  latter  days 
there  would  be  a  great  spiritual  experience  among  men.  Our 
greatest  philosopher,  Fiske,  gives  it  as  the  result  of  his  profound 
studies,  that  man's  physical  development  is  complete,  and  that 
his  development  in  the  future  is  to  be  of  his  inward  nature.  Thus 
the  last  word  of  the  best  philosophy  of  to-day  accords  with  the 
prophetic  word  of  eighteen  centuries  ago.  And  God's  word  is 
pledged,  and  his  nature  too,  for  the  final  triumph  of  good. 

There  is  then  a  great  final  good  to  which  the  world  is  tending, 
and  its  progress  toward  which  we  can  aid  by  our  endeavors.  All 
that  poets  have  dreamed,  all  that  seers  have  beheld  in  their 
visions,  is  to  be  finally  realized.  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are 
to  become  the  kingdoms  of  Christ  our  Lord. 

I  once,  in  sad  and  thoughtful  mood, 
Stood  in  an  old-world  solitude, 
Amidst  the  scattered  ruins  vast 
Of  a  great  empire  of  the  past. 

But  now,  with  feeling  more  intense, 

I  watch  the  gathering  elements 

Of  a  grand  empire  yet  to  be, 

World-clasping  in  immensity. 

That  empire  shall  be  Love  and  Peace  ; 

Its  sway  begun  shall  never  cease ; 

No  drum-beats  shall  its  morns  salute  ; 

No  trumpets  shall  their  clangor  bruit ; 

But,  following  the  circling  sun, 

Each  day  shall  be  with  song  begun  ; 

A  song  of  praise,  O  God,  to  Thee  ; 

A  song  that  shall  unbroken  be, 

Save  by  the  deep-toned  anthem  of  the  sea. 

APPEAL  TO  YOUNG  MEN. 

I  feel  unwilling  to  close  this  little  volume,  my  last  word  to 
those  who  have  known  me,  and  to  young  men  who  may  here- 
after come  upon  the  stage  and  be  attracted  by  some  pro- 
fessional considerations  to  the  reading  of  the  book,  without 
making  an  earnest  appeal  to  young  men  for  purity  of  life.  I 
have  been  exceedingly  pained  by  seeing  not  a  few  young  men 


308  REMINISCENCES. 

in  my  profession  who  have  yielded  to  besetting  temptations 
and  begim  upon  a  depraved  life.  I  feel  the  deepest  sympathy 
for  young  men  so  beleaguered,  who  have  not  yet  reached  a  full 
sense  of  the  seriousness  of  life  and  of  its  heavy  responsibilities, 
and  I  have  from  my  early  life  done  what  I  could  to  strengthen 
the  virtuous  and  reclaim  the  immoral.  One  young  lawyer  of 
much  promise,  to  whom  I  gave  desk  room  in  my  office,  I  found 
had  begun  a  dissolute  life,  and  on  my  telling  him  what  I  had 
heard  he  confessed  that  it  was  so.  "  Now,"  said  he,  "  I  sup- 
pose, of  course,  you  will  require  me  to  leave  the  office."  "  No," 
said  I,  "  I  am  going,  if  I  can,  to  be  your  saviour."  I  did  my 
best  to  reclaim  him,  but  he  soon  after  left  the  city,  and  I  can- 
not feel  sure  that  I  accomplished  anything  for  his  reclamation. 
I  mention  the  case  here  only  as  showing  my  manner  of  dealing 
with  such  cases. 

A  dissolute  life  is  a  terrible  one  to  look  back  upon  from  the 
spirit  world,  whither  we  are  all  hastening.  And  it  is  dreadful 
to  look  back  upon  from  earth  life  where  age  has  brought  us  to 
reflection.  An  elderly  public  man  of  ability,  who  then  had  the 
public  confidence  and  esteem,  and  in  a  high  degree  my  own, 
had  been  a  profligate  in  his  early  life,  and  his  only  son  had 
closed  an  intemperate  and  licentious  life  before  he  was  thirty. 
He  was  one  day  talking  with  me  in  a  room  by  ourselves,  and 
spoke  of  the  great  danger  which  our  young  men  were  in,  of 
falling  into  licentious  habits,  and  said  that,  though  it  was 
greatly  to  be  deplored,  it  seemed  almost  inevitable  that  they 
should  do  so.  I  replied  to  him  that  I  thought  young  men,  by 
the  cultivation  of  pure  ideas  and  by  self-control,  could  preserve 
a  perfect  moral  integrity,  and  I  added  that  no  man  and  no 
woman  had  ever  stepped  down  morally  a  thousandth  part  of  an 
inch  from  anything  that  I  had  ever  done.  "  Can  you  say 
that?"  said  he.  "Can  you  say  that?  Oh  God,  if  I  could 
say  that."  Is  it  worth  while  in  early  life  to  throw  away  an  in- 
nocency  of  mind  that  would  be  worth  all  the  world  to  a  man  in 
later  life? 

The  dissolute  man  is  filling  his  mind  with  foul  images  that 
will  beset  and  haunt  him  as  he  grows  old,  and  especially  when 
he  finds  himself  in  the  other  life.  There  was  a  few  years  ago  a 
well-known  man,  living  in  the  northern  part  of  this  state, 


APPEAL    TO    YOUNG  MEN. 


309 


who  was  notorious  for  his  licentious  habits.  One  day  a  lead- 
ing member  of  our  bar,  who  was  fond  of  gathering  the  younger 
members  about  him  to  hear  his  humorous  stories,  was  thus 
amusing  a  circle  of  whom  I  was  one,  and  told  us  that  he  had 
recently  seen  this  man,  now  old  and  unable  longer  to  keep  up 
his  free  habits,  and  asked  him  how  it  was  with  him  now  as  to 
his  old  appetites.  "  Oh,"  said  the  man,  "  just  as  it  always  has 
been,  only  now  it's  all  in  my  head."  Quite  a  laugh  followed, 
but  to  me  the  picture  which  it  brought  was  a  dreadful  one. 
This  old  man,  in  the  other  world,  was  to  be  set  on  fire  by  his 
old  passions,  yet  it  was  to  be  all  in  his  head.  He  was  to  be 
eaten  up  with  sexual  desire,  but  without  the  means  of  gratifying 
it.  Do  any  of  my  young  friends  want  such  a  hell  ? 

The  Scriptures  tell  us  that  "  as  a  man  thinketh  so  is  he." 
The  only  protection  of  a  young  man  is  in  the  cultivation  of 
pure  thoughts.  Without  them  he  is  almost  at  the  mercy  of 
temptations.  By  a  habit  of  impure  thought  he  is  inviting  evil 
spirits  to  pursue  and  haunt  him.  And  they  are  always  ready 
to  come. 

There  is  a  consideration  in  favor  of  a  chaste  life  that  is  rarely 
thought  of  by  dissolute  men,  but  which  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
very  serious  one.  What  dissolute  man,  who  has  wandered 
about  the  world  in  his  free  life,  knows  what  children  may  have 
been  born  in  shame  and  to  utter  neglect,  of  whom  he  is  the 
father  ?  I  think  such  fathers  in  the  other  world  will  find  fingers 
pointed  at  them  by  children  whom  they  have  never  known,  and 
who  will  curse  them  for  their  own  hard  fate. 

But  there  is  another  consideration  that  should  have  a 
decisive  weight  with  our  young  men.  Almost  every  man  of 
them  expects  some  time  to  marry,  and  will  require  of  the 
woman  he  may  marry  the  strictest  purity  of  life.  But  why 
should  he  demand  a  better  record  of  her  than  she  of  him  ?  If 
he  has  any  sense  of  honor  left  in  him  he  will  be  distressed  at  the 
thought  of  what  he  in  his  defilement  has  brought  to  her  in  her 
purity.  I  do  not  claim  that  it  is  quite  so  bad  in  him  to  have 
fallen  as  it  would  have  been  in  her.  Her  fall  would  have  been 
from  a  greater  height  and  into  a  deeper  abyss,  and  could  less 
easily  be  recovered  from,  though  in  such  a  case,  if  she  had  been 
betrayed  through  her  affections,  she  would  be  less  guilty  than 


3 1 0  REMINISCENCES, 

her  betrayer.  And  I  do  not  claim  that  a  fallen  man  is  hope- 
lessly lost  to  society  and  to  himself.  There  have  been  many 
cases  of  profligate  young  men  repenting  and  reforming  and 
leading  lives  of  usefulness  and  honor.  A  man  by  penitence 
and  a  new  life  can  recover  from  any  fall,  but  he  will  have  a 
stain  upon  his  soul  that  not  all  the  waters  in  the  world  can 
wash  away. 

And  it  is  a  serious  question  whether  such  men,  leaving 
utterly  behind  them  an  immoral  life  and  seeking  the  happiness 
and  support  of  refined  domestic  life,  are  not  bound  in  honor  to 
make  a  full  confession  before  marriage  to  the  women  who  have 
accepted  them.  It  will  be  a  very  difficult  thing  to  do,  and  there 
can  be  no  general  rule  on  the  subject.  Each  case  must  be  de- 
termined by  its  own  circumstances.  But  I  think  it  will  in  al- 
most every  case  be  better  than  to  have  the  concealed  im- 
morality discovered  after  marriage.  At  any  rate  I  think  it 
may  be  relied  on  with  a  good  degree  of  certainty  that  if  the 
woman  has  any  quality  of  nobleness  in  her  own  character,  she 
will  respect  and  trust  him  the  more  for  his  full  confession. 

No  man  need  despair  of  himself  because  in  his  immature 
years  he  has  gone  widely  astray  in  this  matter.  There  is  al- 
ways a  readiness  on  the  part  of  God  to  welcome  back  a  prodigal 
son,  and  society  is  ready  for  it  too.  But  for  the  man  who 
keeps  up  through  life,  or  far  into  middle  life,  habits  of 
profligacy,  I  have  not  a  word  to  say  of  excuse  or  palliation,  and 
society  should  utterly  withdraw  its  respect  and  recognition, 
while  a  terrible  self-condemnation  and  remorse,  making  the 
deepest  hell,  await  him  in  the  future  life. 


A  FINAL  WORD. 

I  had  intended  to  make  my  last  chapter  the  closing  one  of 
my  volume,  but  in  reading  over  what  I  have  said  in  my  chapter 
on  Theology,  I  have  become  apprehensive  that  my  old  religious 
friends  and  co-workers  in  the  c*hurches,  who  still  cling  to  the 
dogmas  that  I  have  abandoned,  may  feel  as  if  I  have  with- 
drawn in  the  same  degree  from  my  sympathy  with  their  re- 
ligious work.  I  am  very  unwilling  to  be  so  misunderstood. 
With  me  an  earnest  spirit  of  Christian  work  counts  for  more, 


A   FIAAL    WORD. 

far  more,  than  intellectual  soundness  of  religious  belief.  The 
latter  stands  only  for  correct  thinking,  which  may  co-exist  with 
utter  heartlessness ;  the  former  is  the  token  of  a  good  heart  and 
life,  which  are  all  that  is  vital  in  human  character.  I  never 
looked  with  more  sympathy  upon  a  human  life  consecrated  to 
the  true  salvation  of  men.  I  look  in  occasionally  upon  the 
young  men  who  are  studying  in  the  Theological  Seminary  at 
Hartford,  and  I  forget  all  about  the  dogmas  which  they  are 
taught  and  which  they  hold,  in  the  thought  of  their  unselfish 
devotion  to  the  good  of  the  world.  There  is  a  light  upon  their 
faces  that  seems  to  me  like  an  illumination  from  the  overspread- 
ing heavens.  The  Fourth  Church  at  Hartford  represents  in  its 
creed  and  teachings  much  that  I  regard  as  passing  away  in 
theology,  but  is  one  of  the  most  consecrated  churches  in  New 
England,  working  incessantly,  not  only  to  build  up  among  its 
members  a  high  standard  of  Christian  life,  but  to  rescue  the 
abandoned  and  profligate,  going  out  into  the  highways  and 
hedges  to  bring  them  in.  It  is  a  great  and  noble  work  that  it  is 
doing,  and  no  change  in  my  own  belief  could  abate  my  interest 
in  its  saving  work. 

I  spend  my  summers  in  Norfolk  in  this  state,  a  mountain 
town  which  is  a  favorite  place  of  summer  resort  for  the  resi- 
dents of  our  cities.  I  always  attend  the  Congregational  church 
there,  which  has  during  the  summer  a  large  congregation.  In 
the  fall  of  1897  I  attended  there,  with  great  interest,  the  in- 
stallation of  a  young  pastor  over  the  church,  and  I  have  ever 
since  watched  with  increasing  interest  his  devoted  labors  in 
his  pulpit  and  through  his  parish.  I  doubt  whether  there  is  a 
person  in  his  parish  whose  eyes  have  followed  him  with  a  more 
tatherly  affection.  In  my  summer  residence  in  Norfolk  in 
former  years  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  always  attending  the 
mid-week  prayer-meeting  of  the  church,  almost  invariably 
taking  a  part  in  its  exercises.  I  am  now  too  old  for  the  activi- 
ties of  a  few  years  ago,  but  I  look  out  on  the  active  Christian 
work  of  others  with  no  abatement  of  interest,  and  with  a  warm 
and  hearty  sympathy  and  satisfaction. 


APPENDIX. 


SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    FARMINGTON     EARLY    IN    THE 
CENTURY. 

BY  JULIUS  GAY  OF  FARMINGTON. 

[The  following  article  was  prepared  at  my  special  request  by  Mr.  Julius 
Gay  of  Farmington,  a  gentleman  of  fine  education  and  of  great  intelligence  in 
all  matters  of  local  and  state  history.  I  am  sure  it  will  very  much  interest  the 
readers  of  my  book.  It  is  of  special  pertinence  to  these  reminiscences,  as  Far- 
mington is  my  native  place  and  it  depicts  the  social  life  into  which  I  was  born 
and  in  which  I  was  reared.  I  have  appended  a  few  short  notes,  generally 
enlarging  a  little  from  my  personal  recollection  some  of  the  points  spoken  of 
by  Mr.  Gay. 

The  Edward  Hooker,  from  whose  journal  of  that  time  Mr.  Gay  makes 
several  extracts,  was  my  father.  He  kept  a  minute  daily  journal  from  the 
time  of  his  graduation  at  Yale  College  in  1805  to  about  1825,  covering  the 
period  of  his  residence  in  South  Carolina,  his  two  years'  tutorship  at  Yale, 
his  marriage  and  the  birth  of  two  of  his  children  (the  second  being  myself) , 
and  the  time  of  his  taking  young  men  to  prepare  them  for  college.  The  jour- 
nal is  an  almost  inexhaustible  mine  of  materials  for  the  study  of  the  people 
and  habits  of  that  time.  J.  H.] 

The  present  village  of  Farmington,  the  original  center  of  the 
old  town  which  once  extended  from  Simsbury  on  the  north  to 
Cheshire  on  the  south,  and  from  the  river  towns  of  Hartford  and 
Wethersfield  westward  beyond  the  Burlington  mountain  range, 
occupies  about  the  same  ground  as  the  village  of  the  Revolution. 
On  the  site  of  Unionville  the  tavern  of  Solomon  Langdon  stood 
almost  alone  on  the  forest  trail  which  led  to  Litchfield  and  far-off 
Albany.  Plainville,  then  known  as  the  "Great  Plain,"  had  only 
a  few  scattered  houses,  while  Avon,  Bristol,  Burlington,  and 
Southington,  though  parts  of  the  town  when  the  revolution 
began,  were  separate  communities,  having  meeting-houses  and  a 
social  life  of  their  own.  The  dwellers  on  the  rich  alluvial  soil 
along  the  Farmington  River  were  industrious  and  prosperous. 
The  horrors  of  Indian  warfare  came  all  around  them  and  left  them 
unharmed.  The  only  revolutionary  armies  which  marched 
through  their  streets  were  the  friendly  troops  of  Rochambeau. 


3*4 


REMINISCENCES. 


At  the  close  of  the  war  the  one  or  two  stores  on  the  main  street 
gave  place  to  a  dozen  or  more  that  supplied  the  wants  of  the 
numerous  villages  springing  up  to  the  westward.  Their  owners 
began  to  import  their  own  goods  from  the  West  Indies  and  even 
from  far-off  China.  From  Middletown  they  shipped  to  the  West 
Indies,  in  their  own  vessels,  oxen,  cows,  beef,  pork,  flour,  corn, 
and  all  manner  of  farm  products,  until  the  breaking  out  of  the 
war  between  England  and  France  in  1792  let  loose  the  French 
privateers  on  their  unprotected  commerce  and  gave  rise  to  the 
still  unsettled  "  French  Spoliation  Claims."  Later  on  from  1800 
to  1806  much  Farmington  capital  was  invested  in  trade  with  China; 
in  the  ship  Sally,  Capt.  Storer ;  the  Huron,  Capt.  Moulthrop;  the 
Oneida,  Capt.  Brintnall,  and  other  ships,  usually  with  a  Farming- 
ton  supercargo.  Along  with  the  ships  sailed  young  men  of  the 
village  seeking  more  stirring  adventures  than  the  quiet  streets  of 
their  native  village  afforded.*  Their  letters  home  from  Canton, 
the  islands  of  the  South  Atlantic  and  South  Pacific,  then  first 
explored  by  adventurous  navigators,  gave  brilliant  pictures  of 
foreign  travel  when  life  was  young  and  every  scene  a  surprise. 
We  have  letters  from  the  Falkland  Islands  off  the  east  coast 
of  Patagonia,  from  South  Georgia  some  seven  hundred  miles 
eastward,  and  several  from  Massafuera  just  west  of  Juan  Fer- 
nandes.  At  these  places  they  captured  large  numbers  of  seals, 
making  up  cargoes  of  sealskins,  on  one  voyage  at  least,  13,025, 
which  were  sold  in  Canton  for  ninety-five  cents  each,  and  the 
proceeds  invested  in  silks,  nankeens,  tea,  and  china  ware.  Then, 
after  circumnavigating  the  globe,  the  adventurers  sailed  back  to 
New  Haven,  and  the  wealthy  owners  divided  the  spoils.  So 
Farmington,  for  one  generation,  grew  rich  and  took  on  luxurious 
habits.  President  Porter,  in  his  discourse  of  1872,  says,  "  The  old 
meeting-house  began  to  rustle  with  silks  and  to  be  gay  with  rib- 


*  Among  these  sailors  was  my  uncle,  James  Hooker,  an  older  brother  of 
my  father,  of  whom  I  give  some  account  in  a  note  at  the  foot  of  page  317.  I 
remember  well  Captain  Mix  (a  son  of  Squire  Mix,  a  leading  citizen  of  the 
town),  who  used  to  walk  about  the  streets  in  his  blue  jacket,  with  the  tradi- 
tional gait  of  an  old  sailor.  He  was  then  but  a  middle-aged  man,  but  was  of 
intemperate  habits,  and  as  I  understood  lost  for  that  reason  his  place  as  a  ship 
master  under  the  Cowles  Brothers.  I  was  a  small  boy  when  he  died.  Life  on 
the  sea  seems  at  that  time  to  have  been  a  school  of  intemperance.  It  became 
the  vice  not  merely  of  the  forecastle,  but  of  the  cabin.  It  made  a  great 
change  in  this  respect  when  the  daily  allowance  of  grog  to  each  sailor  was 
wholly  discontinued,  as  it  was  by  1830.  J.  H. 


APPENDIX.  315 

bons.  The  lawyers  wore  silk  and  velvet  breeches,  broadcloth 
took  the  place  of  homespun  for  coat  and  overcoat ;  and  corduroy 
displaced  leather  for  breeches  and  pantaloons.  As  the  next  cen- 
tury opened,  pianos  were  heard  in  the  best  houses,  thundering 
out  the  '  Battle  of  Prague  '  as  a  tour  de  force,  and  the  gayest  of 
gigs  and  the  most  ostentatious  of  phaetons  rolled  through  the 
village.  Houses  were  built  with  dancing  halls  for  evening  gayety, 
and  the  most  liberal  hospitality,  recommended  by  the  best  of 
cookery,  was  dispensed  at  sumptuous  dinners  and  suppers."  At 
this  rapid  increase  of  wealth  and  luxury,  Gov.  Treadwell  sounds 
a  note  of  warning.  "  The  young  ladies,"  he  says,  "  are  changing 
their  spinning-wheels  for  forte-pianos,  and  forming  their  manners 
at  the  dancing  school  rather  than  in  the  school  of  industry.  Of 
course  the  people  are  laying  aside  their  plain  apparel  manufac- 
tured in  their  houses,  and  clothing  themselves  with  European 
and  India  fabrics.  Labor  is  growing  into  disrepute,  and  the 
time  when  the  independent  farmer  and  reputable  citizen  could 
whistle  at  the  tail  of  his  plough  with  as  much  serenity  as  the  cob- 
bler over  his  last,  is  fast  drawing  to  a  close.  The  present  time 
marks  a  revolution  of  taste  and  of  manners  of  immense  impor- 
tance to  society,  but  while  others  glory  in  this  as  a  great  advance- 
ment in  refinement,  we  cannot  help  dropping  a  tear  at  the  close 
of  the  golden  age  of  our  ancestors,  while  with  a  pensive  pleasure 
we  reflect  on  the  past,  and  with  suspense  and  apprehension 
anticipate  the  future."  Good  Deacon  Samuel  Richards  also 
exclaims,  "The  halcyon  days  of  New  England  are  past.  The 
body  of  the  people  are  putting  off  rigidity  in  habits  and  morals." 
One  of  the  first  results  of  increasing  wealth  was  a  desire  for  a 
better  education  for  their  children  than  the  district  school  afforded. 
Already,  in  1792,  Miss  Sally  Pierce  had  established  her  famous 
school  in  Litchfield  under  the  patronage  of  Chief  Justice  Tapping 
Reeve,  Gov.  Wolcott,  Col.  Tallmadge,  and  other  distinguished 
men,  probably  the  first  female  seminary  in  America.  Here  were 
sent  the  young  ladies  of  this  village  until  the  Farmington  Acad- 
emy was  established.  E.  D.  Mansfield,  LL.D.,*  once  connected 


*  Edward  D.  Mansfield,  here  mentioned,  was  born  in  New  Haven  in  1801, 
prepared  for  college  with  my  father,  graduated  at  Princeton  College  in  1822, 
studied  law  in  Litchfield,  settled  in  Cincinnati,  where  he  was  elected  professor 
of  constitutional  law  in  Cincinnati  College  in  1836,  soon  after  leaving  that 
position  for  journalism,  in  which  he  continued  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  died  in 
1880.  He  was  the  author  of  several  books.  His  "Personal  Memories"  was 
published  in  1879. 


316  REMINISCENCES. 

with  the  "  Old  Red  College  "  of  Mr.  Edward  Hooker  of  this  vil- 
lage, gives  us  in  his  "  Personal  Memories  "  an  outside  view  of  the 
school  as  it  appeared  a  few  years  later,  on  his  first  visit  to  Litch- 
field.  "One  of  the  first  objects  which  struck  my  eyes  was  inter- 
esting and  picturesque.  This  was  a  long  procession  of  school 
girls  coming  down  North  street,  walking  under  the  lofty  elms, 
and  moving  to  the  music  of  a  flute  and  flageolet.  The  girls  were 
gayly  dressed  and  evidently  enjoying  their  evening  parade  in  this 
most  balmy  season  of  the  year.  It  was  the  school  of  Miss  Sally 
Pierce,  one  of  the  earliest  and  best  of  the  pioneers  in  American 
female  education.  That  scene  has  never  faded  from  my  mem- 
ory. The  beauty  of  nature,  the  loveliness  of  the  season,  the  sud- 
den appearance  of  this  school  of  girls,  all  united  to  strike  and 
charm  the  mind  of  a  young  man,  who,  however  varied  his  experi- 
ence, had  never  beheld  a  scene  like  that."  He  was  about  to  enter 
the  Litchfield  Law  School,  a  famous  institution  which  gathered 
numerous  brilliant  young  men,  especially  from  the  south.  Their 
proximity  might  have  been  a  disturbing  element  in  the  quiet  of 
the  young  lady's  school  had  Miss  Pierce  lacked  the  wisdom  to 
manage  discreetly  what  would  have  ruined  a  weaker  administra- 
tion. The  young  men  were  allowed  to  call  on  certain  evenings, 
but  woe  to  the  man  who  transgressed  ever  so  slightly  the  laws  of 
strict  decorum.  To  be  denied  admission  to  Miss  Sally  Pierce's 
parlor  was  the  deepest  disgrace  which  could  befall  a  young  man. 

A  school  girl  writes  home  that  a  "  Mr.  L was  very  attentive 

to  Miss  N of  Farmington,  and  gazed  at  her  so  much  that  it 

mortified  Miss  N ,  and  Miss  Sally  spoke  to  him,  and  he  has 

not  been  in  the  house  since  March. "  It  was  only  after  much  cor- 
respondence and  penitence  that  Mr.  L was  reinstated.  On 

leaving  the  school  each  girl  was  expected  to  bring  home  to  her 
admiring  parents  some  evidence  of  proficiency  in  her  studies. 
Those  who  could,  exhibited  elaborate  water  color  drawings  which 
have  ever  since  hung  on  the  walls  of  Farmington  parlors.  Others 
less  gifted  were  advised  to  paint  their  family  coat  of  arms,  and, 
if  they  had  never  heard  of  any,  they  soon  learned  how  all  this 
could  be  managed  without  any  correspondence  with  the  Herald's 
College.  One  Nathan  Ruggles,  who  advertised  in  the  Connecti- 
cut Courant,  "at  his  Looking  Glass  and  Picture  Store,  Main 
Street,  opposite  the  State  House,  city  of  Hartford,"  had  somehow 
come  in  possession  of  the  huge  folio  volume  of  "  Edmonson's 
Complete  Body  of  Heraldry,"  and  allowed  anyone  to  select  from 


APPENDIX. 


317 


its  vast  assortment  of  heraldic  monsters,  "  Gorgons  and  Hydras 
and  Chimeras  dire,"  such  as  suited  his  taste.  His  sole  charge 
was  the  promise  of  being  employed  to  frame  the  valuable  work 
\vhen  done.  I  have  seen  several  of  these  devices  which  were 
brought  home  from  Litchfield,  some  done  in  water  colors  and 
some  in  embroidery,  with  combinations  of  color  which  would 
make  a  herald  stare.  They  had,  however,  just  as  good  right  to 
them  as  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  the  families  who  flaunt 
coat  armor  and  pictures  of  English  castles,  and  all  that  in  their 
published  genealogies.  Nathan  Ruggles,  who  was  in  a  measure 
responsible  for  all  this  spurious  heraldry,  came  to  an  untimely 
end.  We  read  in  the  Connecticut  Courant  that  in  a  private  dis- 
play of  fireworks  at  his  house,  the  whole  suddenly  exploded  and 
brought  his  heraldic  career  to  an  all  too  brilliant  conclusion. 
Music  was  not  a  specialty  of  Miss  Pierce,  and  so  the  Farmington 
young  ladies  were  removed  to  the  school  of  Mr.  Woodbridge  in 
Middletown,  where  a  piano  was  procured  for  their  use,  and  instruc- 
tion was  given  them  by  a  Mr.  Birkenhead.  One  of  them  writes, 
"  My  Papa  has  just  informed  me  that  I  might  go  to  Middletown 
this  summer  to  school  with  my  cousin  Fanny.  I  am  so  strongly 
attached  to  my  native  place  that  it  is  not  without  regret  that  I 
leave  it ;  from  the  calm  scenes  of  pleasure  into  a  busy  crowd  of 
extravagant  people.  I  have  been  warned  of  my  danger.  My 
Mamma  is  something  unwilling  I  should  go,  for  fear  that  the 
pleasures  of  the  world  and  its  fashionable  enjoyments  will  gain 
an  ascendency  over  me  and  raise  ambitious  views  and  lead  me 
into  the  circle  of  an  unthinking  crowd."  Two  years  afterward 
she  is  sent  to  New  York  to  continue  her  musical  studies  and 
writes,  "  Had  a  long  passage  here  ;  no  female  kind  on  board  with 
us,  but  plenty  of  male,  .  .  .  and  above  all  was  Mr.  Wollstone- 
craft,  brother  to  the  famous  Mary  Godwin,  author  of  the  '  Rights 
of  Women.'  He  was  a  very  good  looking  man,  conversed  hand- 
somely, and  was,  to  appearance,  of  great  information.  He 
informed  me  that  his  sister  died  two  years  ago.  ...  I  have 
seen  him  once  since  we  came  here.  He  is  an  officer  in  the  army 
stationed  at  New  York."  By  Mary  Godwin  she  refers  to  the 
mother  of  the  future  wife  of  the  poet  Shelley. 

The  first  piano  in  town  of  which  I  find  mention  was  bought  by 
Gen.  Solomon  Cowles,  probably  in  1798  or  1799.  In  November 
6,  1799,  his  niece  writes,  "Wednesday  .  .  .  Came  to  Uncle 
Solomon's  to  hear  the  music,  piano  and  bass-viol  and  three  voices. 


3 1 8  REMINISCENCES. 

.  .  .  From  there  to  Mr.  Chauncey  Deming's  to  see  their  new 
piano,  which  is  a  very  good  one.  It  has  ten  more  keys  than 
Fanny's."  A  piano  was  bought  about  this  time  by  Zenas  Cowles, 
and  these  three  pianos  were  probably  the  only  ones  in  town  for 
several  years.*  As  for  the  style  of  music  rehearsed  on  these 
instruments,  we  read:  "Wednesday  eve.  Mr.  Birkenhead  had  a 
benefit  at  Gridley's  and  his  pupils  played,  all  except  Nabby 
Deming  and  myself.  He  wished  me  to  play,  but  as  I  did  not 
sing  I  thought  it  not  best.  Fanny  played  much  the  best,  and 
sung  extremely  well,  indeed.  The  tunes  she  played  were  '  The 
Shipwreck,'  'The  Tear,'  and  '  The  Bud  of  the  Rose.'  Dr.  Todd, 
I.  Norton,  and  Larcon  were  there  with  their  instruments.  After 


*  When  I  was  a  small  boy  my  father  purchased  a  piano  for  my  sister,  three 
years  older  than  myself.  There  were  at  that  time  but  few  pianos  in  the  village, 
and  they  had  not  ceased  to  be  curiosities,  and  to  be  regarded  as  extrava- 
gances. My  father  was  very  fond  of  music,  and  began  at  once  to  amuse 
himself  with  the  piano,  though  he  never  became  an  expert  player.  I  often 
heard  him  for  an  hour  at  the  piano  after  we  had  all  gone  to  bed,  and  he  not  in- 
frequently spent  an  hour  over  it  at  midnight  when  he  happened  to  have  a 
wakeful  night.  My  uncle  James,  whom  I  have  spoken  of  on  page  27  as  his 
wayward  brother,  whose  intemperate  habits  compelled  my  father  to  relinquish 
his  settled  plan  of  going  into  the  practice  of  law  in  Columbia,  So.  Car.,  with 
his  brother  John  (see  page  237),  and  to  settle  in  Farmington  and  take  the  family 
farm  and  the  care  of  his  father  and  mother,  was  then  living  with  the  old 
people  at  Farmington,  and,  upon  the  death  of  my  grandfather,  came  into  our 
family.  My  father  was  the  youngest  member  of  the  family,  and  the  only  one 
(besides  James)  who  was  not  settled  in  life.  My  uncle  James,  I  remember  well, 
in  all  my  childhood.  He  lived  to  be  67.  He  had  been  a  sailor  under  the 
Cowles  Brothers,  and  had  spent  a  few  years  on  the  sea.  He  there  acquired 
the  common  habit  of  sailors  of  taking  their  daily  grog,  as  well  as  a  familiar 
use  of  their  picturesque  and  often  very  emphatic  language.  He  had  been  a 
bright  boy,  and  through  life  was  very  fond  of  sitting  all  day  in  his  room 
and  reading.  He  had  very  positive  views  of  social  matters,  and  greatly  dis- 
liked the  introduction  in  our  homespun  village  of  pianos  and  extravagance.  I 
have  often  seen  him  terribly  irritated  by  my  sister's  inartistic  practice  upon 
it,  and  remember  his  once  saying,  as  we  stood  in  the  yard,  with  the  noise 

from  it  coming  through  the  open  window,  ' '  There  goes  again  that  d d 

eternal  jewsharp."  His  death  was  preceded  by  a  long  typhoid  fever,  during 
which  my  father  watched  over  and  nursed  him  night  and  day,  feeling,  I  think, 
that  he  had  been  too  impatient  with  him  in  his  "often  infirmity."  When  at 
last,  at  the  end  of  several  weeks,  he  died,  my  father  at  once  went  to  bed  in 
complete  exhaustion,  and  died  in  four  days.  He  was  but  61,  and  ought  to  have 
lived  twenty  years  longer.  Thus  was  wasted  the  life  of  one  of  the  brightest 
of  the  family,  and  more  than  wasted,  since  in  going  down  it  carried  with  it  the 
life  of  my  father,  one  of  the  best  and  most  useful  of  men. — J.  H. 


APPENDIX. 


319 


the  playing  was  finished  the  company  danced  two  figures,  and 
George  [afterward  Gen.  George]  danced  a  hornpipe.  Came 
home  at  twelve  o'clock." 

And  now  with  the  young  men,  some  in  college  and  some  in 
Canaan  Academy,  and  the  girls  in  Litchfield  or  Middletown,  what 
sort  of  schools  had  they  left  behind  them?  As  good  as  those  of 
our  neighbors,  and  as  much  better  as  the  lifelong  labors  of  Gov. 
Treadwell  could  make  them.  Two  or  three  young  misses,  just 
beginning  to  write  letters,  thus  inform  their  dignified  cousin  at 
Yale:  "Mr.  Lee,"  that  is,  Matthew  Lee,  the  teacher,  "says  that 
the  girls  make  more  disturbance  than  all  the  rest  of  the  school.  I 
learn  Geography  but  not  Grammar,  because  Mr.  Lee  says  he  does 
not  understand  English  Grammar."  Eight  months  afterwards 
our  collegian  is  informed — "We  have  got  a  good  schoolmaster. 
His  name  is  Gordon  Johnson.  You  must  be  a  good  boy,  and 
learn  as  fast  as  you  can."  A  year  later  we  learn  that — "Mr. 
Nathan  North  keeps  our  school.  He  boards  at  our  house.  Mr. 
North  has  between  thirty  and  forty  scholars  in  his  school."  It 
was  visited  on  the  last  day  of  the  year  by  Gov.  Treadwell,  Major 
Hooker,  Rev.  Mr.  Washburn,  Deacon  Bull,  Col.  Isaac  Cowles,  and 
Gen.  Solomon  Cowles.  Imagine  these  ponderous  dignitaries 
sitting  around  the  blazing  log  fire  on  that  winter's  day.  I  will 
warrant  there  was  no  want  of  decorum  in  school  that  day,  on  the 
girls'  side  or  anywhere  else.  What  hard  questions  they  put  does 
not  appear.  Probably  Messrs.  Washburn,  Treadwell,  and  Bull 
could  hardly  have  failed  to  inquire,  "  What  is  the  chief  end  of 
man  ? "  One  lively  miss  writes,  "  They  praised  us  very  much,  and 
if  I  was  sure  you  would  not  think  I  was  proud,  I  would  tell  you 
that  my  writing  was  judged  the  best  in  school."  Good  penman- 
ship was  considered  of  the  first  importance,  and  was  the  one 
qualification  most  insisted  on  in  the  examination  of  teachers. 
Nathan  North,  sitting  at  his  desk  one  winter's  day  after  school 
was  out,  writes  to  a  friend  — "  It  is  six  o'clock,  and  I  am  at  my 
schoolhouse  writing  in  the  dark.  Oh  wretched  man  that  I  am, 
because  I  can  write  no  better." 

But  enough  of  schools.  The  intellectual  life  of  the  middle 
aged  found  exercise  in  the  several  debating  and  literary  societies 
of  the  day,  The  Social  Club,  The  Union  Society,  The  Weekly 
Meeting,  and  I  know  not  how  many  others.  The  latter  comes 
into  being  January  15,  1772,  with  this  ponderous  preamble  :  "It 
has  been  justly  observed  in  all  ages  that  vice  increases  when 


320  REMINISCENCES. 


learning  is  on  the  decline,  and,  on  the  contrary,  when  useful 
learning  flourishes,  it  in  some  measure  excludes  vice  and  im- 
morality ;  and  we,  the  subscribers,  sensible  of  the  prevalence  of 
vice  and  the  low  state  useful  learning  is  in  among  us,"  etc.,  etc. 
We  learn,  however,  that  after  a  few  weeks  this  meeting  joined 
the  Social  Club,  under  different  regulations.  A  series  of  fourteen 
essays  written  by  Amos  Wadsworth  for  these  clubs,  beginning 
with  the  year  1772,  and  as  many  more  by  his  brother  Fenn,  have 
come  down  to  us.  The  subjects,  many  of  them,  show  the  theo- 
logical bias  of  the  age.  Some  of  them  were — "Conscience, 
whether  it  be  lawful  to  follow  its  dictates  in  all  cases  ;"  "  Infant 
Baptism  vindicated;  "  "  Extorted  Promises  not  binding;  "  "Beasts 
not  rational;  "  "  Enslaving  Negroes  vindicated;  "  "  Origin  of  Civil 
Society;"  "The  Sabbath  Evening  must  be  kept  holy;"  "Theft 
ought  not  to  be  punishable  with  death;"  "The  duty  of  unre- 
generate  men  to  pray; "  "  The  Supreme  Magistrate  not  to  be  re- 
sisted;" "The  Powers  of  Congress."  The  club  sometimes  also 
dropped  into  poetry.  They  have  left  us  a  "  Song  to  Sylvia,"  in 
six  verses,  with  much  about  love  and  turtle  dove,  the  nightingale 
and  amorous  tale,  and  other  interesting  matters.  I  speak  of  these 
clubs  as  being  the  progenitors  of  those  of  the  next  two  genera- 
tions with  which  our  subject  is  more  immediately  concerned,  in 
which  other  topics  are  discussed,  and  when  thought  begins  to 
take  a  broader  range.  In  1813  we  hear  of  the  "Moral  Society." 
Mr.  Hooker  records — "Thursday,  Sept.  9.  Evening.  Attended 
the  'Moral  Society,'  when  the  conversation  was  chiefly  on  the 
means  of  resisting  the  vice  of  profane  sweating."  The  next 
week  the  society  conversed  "  on  the  use  of  ardent  spirits  at  the 
meetings  of  people  for  business."  At  other  meetings  they  dis- 
cussed colonization  for  the  negro,  paper  money,  and  other  topics 
of  a  political  nature,  until  the  one  member  who  looked  upon 
slavery  as  a  divine  ordinance  came  to  denounce  the  Moral 
Society  and  all  effort  to  interfere  with  the  morals  of  the  com- 
munity or  the  nation  as  odious,  comparing  them  with  the  in- 
quisition of  Spain  and  the  system  of  espionage  in  the  time  of 
Bonaparte.  A  more  genial  body  of  men  was  the  "  Conversation 
Club,"  which  met  weekly  at  the  houses  of  the  members  and  dis- 
cussed a  wide  range  of  topics.  The  principal  members  were 
Doctors  Todd  and  Thomson,  Mr.  Goodman,  principal  of  the 
academy,  Egbert  Cowles,  Alfred  Cowles,  George  Robinson, 
Nathaniel  Olmsted,  and  sometimes  other  prominent  men.  Mr. 


APPENDIX. 


321 


Hooker  almost  always  attended,  and  wrote  in  his  diary  an  ab- 
stract of  the  subjects  considered,  and  the  diverse  opinions  of  each 
of  the  members.  We  have  space  for  only  the  most  meagre 
account  of  these  most  interesting  discussions.  They  conversed 
on  the  penitentiary  system;  to  what  extent  it  is  desirable  that  the 
benefits  of  education  be  diffused  among  the  mass  of  people ;  on 
poor  laws;  on  the  expediency  of  further  and  greater  encourage- 
ment being  given  to  the  manufacturing  interests  of  the  United 
States;  on  the  distribution  of  the  public  school  money  of  Connec- 
ticut; on  the  assessment  of  property,  and  on  other  questions 
mostly  of  public  utility.  There  were  also  monthly  meetings  of 
the  village  library  company,  in  which  they  discussed  the  merits  of 
new  books,  and  Mr.  Hooker  records  the  talk  at  length.  The 
comparative  value  of  the  "  Commentaries  "  of  Clarke  and  Scott 
and  Gov.  Tread  well's  criticism  of  "Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets," 
especially  interested  them.  The  ladies,  too,  had  a  society  known 
as  the  Female  Society,  for  aiding  in  the  education  of  pious 
youth  for  the  ministry.  By  far  the  most  interesting  conversa- 
tions recorded  by  Mr.  Hooker  are  those  which  he  himself  held 
with  the  good  people  of  the  village  in  his  daily  walks  among 
them,  and  which  he  recorded  at  length  when  he  returned  at 
night,  revealing  what  Farmington  society  most  cared  for,  and 
giving  some  insight  into  its  culture  and  intellectual  breadth.  We 
can  give  but  glimpses  of  it.  He  says  — "In  the  afternoon  moralized 
with  Mr.  Chauncey  Deming  at  his  store  about  an  hour  .... 
He  entertained  me  with  some  description  of  the  manners  that 
prevailed  thirty  or  forty  years  ago.  He  says  that  more  expense 
is  bestowed  on  the  bringing  up  of  one  youth  than  was  formerly 
bestowed  on  twenty.  Young  fellows  would  often,  perhaps  gen- 
erally, go  to  meeting  without  stockings  and  shoes  in  the  summer 
till  they  were  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old.  Not  more  than 
twenty-eight  years  ago  the  girls  would  attend  balls  with  checkered 
aprons  on,  and  he  has  many  a  time  gone  to  a  ball  with  Dema  (his 
wife)  attired  in  that  way."  Again — "Made  a  call  of  an  hour  or 
two  at  Chauncey  Deming's.  Conversed  on  his  favorite  theme, 
the  selfishness  of  the  human  character."  With  Gov.  Tread  well 
he  converses  on  the  common  origin  of  mankind,  on  foreign 
missions,  on  Johnson's  "  Lives  of  the  Poets,"  and  on  the  sudden 
growth  of  Farmington  opulence;  and  with  Capt.  Seymour  on  the 
most  profitable  mode  of  reading.  With  President  Dwight  he 
"  walked  very  leisurely,  and  conversed  on  various  topics,  but 


322  REMINISCENCES. 

mostly  on  matrimony, "  he  being  particularly  interested  in  that 
subject  at  that  time.  One  afternoon  he  calls  at  Mr.  Pitkin's,  who 
was  busy  with  some  law  business,  "so  Mrs.  Pitkin  said  she  must 
be  unceremonious  enough  to  ask  me  into  the  room  where  were 
her  friends,  Mrs.  L.  and  Mrs.  M.,  seated  by  a  good  fire  and  very 
social.  The  conversation  turned  on  the  reasoning  power  of 
brutes,  catching  rats,  suicide,  and  various  other  things."  Riding 
home  from  Hartford  with  Mrs.  Pitkin,  they  discourse  on  the 
utility  of  newspapers,  on  the  belittling  nature  of  the  ordinary 
strifes  among  men  for  village  distinction,  on  the  character  of 
some  public  men,  especially  of  John  Randolph,  and  on  the 
Quakers  of  Philadelphia,  among  whom  Mrs.  Pitkin  had  visited. 
Soon  after  Dr.  Porter's  settlement  here,  after  noting  all  his 
wanderings  for  the  day,  he  says, "  Walked  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Porter's 
and  spent  the  evening.  There  was  quite  a  large  assemblage, 
more  than  a  dozen  in  number.  Mrs.  Washburn  and  her  sister, 
Misses  Charity  Cowles,  C.  Mix,  C.  Deming,  Mary  Ann  Cowles, 
Mary  Treadwell,  Maria  Washburn,  and  Messrs.  Porter,  G.  Norton, 
Camp,  T.  Cowles,  W.  L.  Cowles,  T.  Root,  and  Egbert  Cowles. 
The  evening  was  spent  in  mixed  conversation  and  singing,  and 
the  company  was  treated  with  cider  and  walnuts.  The  subjects 
of  conversation  were  the  Rev.  Mr.  Huntington's  dismission,  the 
character  of  the  Philadelphia  clergy  and  those  of  New  York,  the 
state  of  piety  in  the  cities  of  New  York  and  Charleston,  the 
Southern  Baptists,  and  numerous  other  topics  suited  to  the  time 
and  place."  Of  all  the  conversations  which  he  so  laboriously 
reported,  none  can  begin  to  compare  for  clearness  of  thought, 
breadth  of  range,  liberality  of  sentiment,  and  nobility  of  heart  and 
mind,  with  those  of  Dr.  Eli  Todd.  He  says — "Dr.  Todd  is 
hardly  willing  to  rank  the  pleasures  of  music  with  those  of  sense, 
for  he  thinks  them  intimately  connected  with  the  best  affections 
of  the  heart.  At  least  he  believes  this  pleasure  never  exists  in  a 
high  degree  except  when  so  connected.  When  in  Trinidad  he 
daily  saw  a  tiger  of  prodigious  fierceness  confined  in  a  cage,  so 
rapacious  that  if  a  piece  of  meat  were  put  to  him  he  would 
instantly  tear  it  into  shreds.  He  played  airs  on  a  flute  by  the 
cage  day  after  day,  and  the  beast  every  day  seemed  less  wild,  till 
in  a  short  time  he  would  purr  like  a  cat  and  roll  and  rub  and  be 
apparently  the  subject  of  inexpressible  delight."  An  experience 
which  may  have  profited  the  doctor  in  his  new  and  kindly  methods 
of  treating  the  insane  in  after  life.  Again  he  discourses  on  "  the 


APPENDIX.  323 

state  of  society  in  Farmington,  the  causes  and  consequences  of 
the  particular  form  which  its  character  takes,  and  on  earthquakes 
and  meteors. "  On  another  occasion  he  talks  on  the  "subject  of 
expensive  rural  embellishments  in  reference  to  Daniel  Wads- 
worth's  country  seat,  and  discussed  whether  it  be  justifiable  to 
expend  one's  superfluous  wealth  in  such  a  way,  or  in  the  expensive 
gratification  of  a  taste  for  the  fine  arts.  He  argued  for  the 
affirmative,  and  insisted  that  the  rich  have  a  right  to  gratifications 
as  well  as  the  poor."  Again  he  conversed  "  on  those  peculiarities 
of  character  which  mark  a  simple  state  of  society,  holding  that  a 
high  cultivation  of  the  intellect,  if  not  a  part  of  virtue,  is  neces- 
sary to  give  to  virtue  its  highest  degree  of  beauty  and  loveliness, 
and  on  whether  a  state  of  society  devoted  to  the  rural  interest  or  to 
commerce  is  to  be  preferred."  Again  he  discourses  "  on  the  kind 
and  degree  of  evidence  by  which  the  Christian  revelation  is  sup- 
ported," and  "on  the  effects  of  ardent  spirits,  and  on  the  threat- 
ening danger  to  the  country  from  the  prevalent  use  of  them." 

The  dangers  of  intemperance  to  the  State  were  only  just  be- 
ginning to  force  themselves  on  the  attention  of  thinking  men. 
Deacon  Bull,  writing  an  account  of  the  town  to  be  used  by  Gov. 
Treadwell  in  his  "Statistical  History  of  Farmington,"  under  the 
head  of  vices  does  not  once  allude  to  intemperance.  He  says  : 
"  The  number  and  kind  of  vices  in  the  town  are  too  many  for  the 
compass  of  my  ability  to  find  out  or  enumerate  ;  however,  there  is 
nothing  in  this  respect  distinguishable  from  other  towns  of  the 
same  age,  numbers,  and  experience.  In  particular,  card-playing 
and  profane  swearing  are  the  most  prominent  vices  of  the  town. 
The  inhabitants,  in  general,  are  industrious,  sober,  and  peaceable. " 

While  the  men  amused  themselves  with  their  clubs,  moral  or 
conversational,  the  ladies  read  at  home  whatever  books  came  in 
their  way.  He  who  will,  may  examine  the  records  of  the  village 
library  and  find  charged  to  them  the  works  of  Jonathan  Edwards 
and  other  books  which  are  not  often  called  for  in  the  library  of 
to-day,  and  whose  titles  are  as  unfamiliar  to  us  as  most  of  those 
we  read  will  be  to  our  children.  One  devourer  of  books  writes  in 
her  diary:  "  Yesterday,  which  was  Monday,  I  went  to  Hartford 
in  the  stage  with  Miss  Sally  Pierce.  .  .  .  Bought  a  couple  of 
books, —  '  Wilberforce's  View,'  6/,  and  'Memoirs  of  Miss  Susanna 
Anthony,'  3/6  ;  the  former,  Miss  Pierce  advised  me  to  purchase." 
We  hear  no  more  of  Mr.  Wilberforce  and  his  "  View,"  but,  on  leav- 
ing the  school  in  Middletown,  Mr.  Woodbridge  presented  her  with 


324  REMINISCENCES. 

"Reflections  on  Death."  Two  Sundays  afterwards  she  writes: 
' '  Attended  meeting  all  day ;  read  in  '  Reflections  on  Death  ' ; 
found  it  very  interesting  as  well  as  instructive."  Here  is  her  ex- 
perience with  a  famous  novel  she  got  from  the  library  :  ' '  Thurs- 
day evening.  Read  in  '  Sir  Charles  Grandison,'  a  novel  I  don't  in- 
tend to  read  any  more."  But  she  did.  Two  weeks  afterward  she 
wrote  :  "  Saturday.  At  home.  Evening,  read  in  '  Grandison. ' 
Sunday.  Stayed  at  home  ;  read  in  '  Grandison  ';  had  a  very  bad 
pain  in  my  head.  Monday.  As  usual.  Evening.  Read  in  '  Gran- 
dison.' "  Two  weeks  later  :  "  Went  to  Mr.  Bull's  ...  to  get 
the  second  volume  of  '  Grandison '  which  I  have  read  almost 
through."  The  Saturday  following  she  writes  :  "Have  been  so 
much  reading  '  Grandison  '  that  other  things  have  been  neglected." 
This  is  the  last  we  hear  of  Sir  Charles.  How  any  mortal  could 
have  waded  through  the  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  octavo  pages  of  that  famous  book,  even  with  skipping  nine 
pages  out  of  ten,  is  a  mystery  to  all  moderns.  In  the  early  days 
of  the  library,  some  one  calling  at  Mr.  Ezekiel  Cowles's  remarks  : 
"  Egbert  is  now  reading  the  '  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  which  seems  to 
be  a  very  fashionable  book  about  here. " 

Schools  and  music,  debating  clubs,  books,  and  serious  conver- 
sation filled  up  but  a  small  part  of  the  leisure  hours  of  society. 
Five  o'clock  teas  and  evening  parties  assembling  by  invitation 
were  not  in  vogue.  Families  were  larger  than  now,  and  the 
young  people  from  one  house  had  but  to  join  their  cousins  across 
the  street  to  make  the  liveliest  gatherings.  Others  dropped  in, 
and,  somewhere  every  night,  there  were  dancing  and  music  and 
games  and  hearty  enjoyment.  One  favorite  meeting-place  on  a 
summer  evening  was  the  long  flight  of  stone  steps  which  led  from 
the  street  up  to  the  ever  hospitable  door  of  Squire  Mix.  Another 
favorite  locality  involving  a  somewhat  longer  walk  which  some- 
times had  its  own  attractions,  was  "The  Maples."  I  think,  but 
am  not  positive,  that  this  must  have  been  the  familiar  name  of  the 
residence  of  Gov.  Treadwell,  the  little  red  house  by  the  side  of 
Poke  Brook,  near  the  great  rock.  Here  are  a  few  glimpses  of 
these  informal  gatherings  :  "To  Gen.  Cowles's,  where  we  found 
a  lively  little  party  engaged  in  a  family  dance,  with  a  couple  of 
negroes  to  play  for  them.  Much  affability  and  hilarity."  Or, 
"All  the  ladies  were  at  Mr.  Norton's,  and  the  gentlemen.  We 
played  '  Button. '  I  was  mortified  by  a  lad's  handing  me  the  but- 
ton twice  following. "  Again:  "Thursday  we  went  to  Fanny's. 


APPENDIX.  325 

All  the  girls  were  there,  and,  among  the  rest,  Miss  N H . 

Tim  and  Tim  were  there  (afterward  Major  Timothy  Cowles  and 
Major  Timothy  Root).     They  proposed  trying  fortunes.     N  — 
tried  hers.     (I'll  tell  you  how  we  try  them.)     We  take  a  glass  and 
a  ring  and  tie  a  string  around  the  ring  and  hold  it  in  the  glass  and 
let  it  strike  the  glass,  and  count  A,  B,  C,  etc.    N's  struck  M  — 

C . "    Much  previous  knowledge  seems  to  have  entered  into 

this  as  into  most  fortune-telling,  for  soon  afterward  it  was  an- 
nounced from  the  pulpit  that  M C  —  -  and  N  ^ H  —  -  in- 
tend marriage.  Even  the  weekly  prayer-meeting  had  its  social 
side.  Here  female  piety  came  to  hear  the  teaching  of  the  be- 
loved Washburn,  and  here,  too,  came  young  men  not  always  of 
devout  reputation.  Until  near  the  close  of  the  ministry  of  Dr. 
Porter  it  was  the  fashion  to  seat  the  men  on  the  right  side  of  the 
hall  in  evening  meetings  and  the  women  on  the  left,  in  the  vain 
attempt  to  defy  the  strongest  of  nature's  laws.  When  Dr.  Porter 
began  his  ministry  here,  a  young  lady  writes  :  "Mr.  Porter  ad- 
dressed the  gentlemen  and  requested  them  to  sit  down  and  wait 
till  the  ladies  were  out  of  the  hall.  We  arrived  safely  home  with- 
out any  escort,  as  the  gentlemen,  alas  !  could  not  overtake  us. 
Mr.  B got  to  us  just  as  we  crossed  the  street,  after  a  long  run- 
ning." In  the  winter  evenings  the  young  people  amused  them- 
selves with  sleighrides.  Commonly  they  drove  to  Southington, 
stopping  at  all  the  inns  on  the  way  —  at  least  the  boys  did  —  and 
returning  had  a  supper  at  Cook's  in  White  Oak,  and  so  home. 
Occasionally  they  rode  to  Solomon  Langdon's,  stopping,  of  course, 
at  Thomson's  by  the  way.  Those  old  houses,  Langdon's •  and 
Cook's,  somber  enough  in  our  day,  have  probably  seen  more  of 
mirth  and  good  cheer  than  any  other  two  in  town.  Here  are  a 
few  specimens  of  a  girl's  experiences :  "February  23,  1798,  .  .  . 
We  went  to  Mr.  Jonathan  Thomson's  ;  came  back.  Coming  by 
the  meeting-house,  the  bell  rang  [9  o'clock,  of  course].  Down  to 
Mr.  Dunham's  we  went ;  stayed  there  about  an  hour,  then  down 
to  Mr.  Job  Lewis's,  then  to  Mr.  Selah  Lewis's.  All  abed.  Came 
back  to  Mr.  Dunham's.  We  stayed  there  about  an  hour  longer. 
Got  home  about  2  o'clock.  Got  to  bed  and  asleep  about  3."  One 
more  account  must  suffice.  On  the  day  after  Thanksgiving  in 
1799  they  planned  a  sleighride,  but  an  inopportune  rain  carried 
off  all  the  snow  ;  this,  however,  made  no  difference  ;  they  went  all 
the  same.  "  Cleared  off  at  noon  ;  took  the  stage  and  went  out  to 
Langdon's  to  dine.  On  the  back  seat  were  four,  S ,  F , 


326  REMINISCENCES. 

B ,  and  myself.     Next  N H ,  and   D ,  and  A — 

M ,     Next  L ,  and  M ,  N H ,  G ,  and  M . 

Dick  Gleason,  negro,  drove  four  horses.     T—  -  C,  T—   -  R , 

T ,  and  S on  horseback.     Had  a  very  good  dinner,  fried 

fowls,  pies,  chicken-pies,  and  cake.  There  was  a  live  owl  there, 
and  after  we  got  seated  in  the  stage  it  was  flung  in,  and  then  — 
what  a  screaming !  Set  out  to  come  home  and  the  boys  got  whip- 
ping and  running  horses.  Very  muddy.  You  may  depend  I  was 
frightened.  The  girls'  white  cloaks  were  covered  with  mud,  and 
Sukey  told  me  this  afternoon  she  had  been  washing  hers  and 
could  not  get  it  out.  In  the  evening  went  to  the  ball.  Had  a  very 
good  one.  Thirteen  ladies  and  about  as  many  gentlemen."  Fif- 
teen years  later  we  have  a  picture  of  social  life  in  Farmington  by 
the  same  Mr.  E.  D.  Mansfield,  who  gave  us  his  impressions  of  the 
school  of  Miss  Sally  Pierce.  He  says:  "In  August,  1815,  my 
father  took  me  to  Farmington,  Conn.,  to  prepare,  under  a  private 
tutor,  to  enter  college  preparatory  to  the  study  of  law. 
As  this  was  to  me  a  new  and  striking  life,  I  will  give  a  little  de- 
scription of  it,  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the  inside  view  I  had  of  New 
England  society.  My  tutor,  Mr.  Hooker,  was  a  descendant  of 
one  of  the  old  New  England  families,  and  had  all  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  Puritans  ;  was  very  religious  and  exact  in  all  his  duties. 
He  lived  on  what  had  been  a  farm,  but  a  portion  of  it  had  been 
embraced  in  the  town.  Having  got  forward  in  the  world,  he  had 
built  a  new  house.  His  old  house  was  one  of  the  oldest  in  the 
country,  large,  dark -red,  with  a  long,  sharp,  projecting  roof.  This 
was  the  residence  and  schoolroom  of  the  students,  and  we  called 
it  "Old  Red."  There  were  about  fourteen  of  us,  from  nearly  as 
many  states.  There  we  lodged  and  there  we  recited,  while  we 
took  our  meals  at  Mr.  Hooker's.  His  son,  John,  afterward  mar- 
ried Miss  Isabella  Beecher,  now  the  noted  Mrs.  Isabella  Hooker.* 
"Mr.  Hooker  was  a  deacon  in  the  church  —  the  church,  I  say, 
emphatically,  for  it  was  the  only  one  in  the  village  —  a  monument 
remaining  to  the  old  and  unquestioned  orthodoxy  of  New  Eng- 
land. It  stood  on  the  little  green,  its  high,  sharp  spire  pointing 
to  heaven.  The  pastor  of  that  church  was  Mr.  Porter,  who 
preached  there  for  nearly  half  a  century  [sixty  years].  He  was 
the  father  of  the  present  Noah  Porter,  president  of  Yale  College. 


*  Mrs.   Hooker's  friends  would  hardly  recognize  her  by  this  name,  as  she 
invariably  writes  her  name  Isabella  Beecher  Hooker. —  J.  H. 


APPENDIX. 


327 


Mr.  Hooker  took  a  large  pew  for  the  students,  and  he  told  us  to 
make  notes  of  the  sermon,  upon  which  he  questioned  us.  I  was 
always  thankful  for  this  exercise,  for  I  got  into  such  a  habit  of  an- 
alyzing discourses  that,  if  the  speaker  had  any  coherence  at  all,  I 
could  always  give  the  substance  of  the  sermon  or  address.  This 
is,  to  a  newspaper  man,  a  useful  talent.  I  have  tried  to  discover 
what  was  the  religious  effect  of  this  continual  hearing  and  analyz- 
ing sermons,  but  could  not  find  any.  Such  exercises  become  a 
habit,  and  are  purely  intellectual.  A  striking  figure  is  sometimes 
remembered,  but  any  spiritual  effect  is  wanting  on  young  people 
who  have  not  learned  to  think  seriously.  I  remember  one  of  Mr. 
Porter's  illustrations  of  the  idea  of  death,  which  I  think  he  must 
have  taken  from  Sir  Walter  Scott's  'Talisman.'  At  any  rate 
Scott  has  beautifully  described  it  in  that  work.  It  is  that  of  Sala- 
din,  who,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  splendid  fete,  surrounded  by 
his  chiefs,  had  the  black  banner  unfolded,  on  which  was  inscribed, 
'  vSaladin,  remember  thou  must  die ! '  Mr.  Porter  was  more  than 
half  a  century  minister  in  that  parish,  and  a  most  successful  cler- 
gyman, honored  in  his  life  and  in  his  death.  Such  was  the  minis- 
tration of  the  church  to  me,  but  I  must  say  that  in  the  service  the 
chief  objects  of  my  devotiou  were  the  bright  and  handsome  girls 
around.  At  that  time,  and  to  a  great  degree  yet  in  a  New  Eng- 
land village,  out  of  the  great  stream  of  the  world,  its  young 
women  were  the  largest  part  of  the  inhabitants,  and  by  far  the 
most  interesting.  The  young  men  usually  emigrated  to  the  cities 
of  the  West,  in  the  hopes  of  making  fortunes.  The  old  people 
were  obliged  to  remain  to  take  care  of  the  homesteads,  and  the 
young  women  stayed  also. 

"  No  place  illustrated  this  better  than  Farmington,  where  there 
were  at  least  five  young  women  to  one  young  man.  The  advent 
of  the  students  was,  of  course,  an  interesting  event  to  them.  And 
a  young  gentleman  in  his  nineteenth  year  was  not  likely  to  escape 
wholly  the  bright  shafts  which,  however  modestly  directed,  he 
was  sure  to  encounter.  I  soon  became  acquainted  with  these 
young  ladies,  and  never  passed  a  pleasanter  time  than  when  days 
of  study  were  relieved  by  evenings  in  their  society.  My  father 
went  with  me  to  Farmington  and  introduced  me  to  the  Hon.  Tim- 
othy Pitkin.  This  gentleman  was  then  a  very  distinguished  man. 
He  was  one  of  the  leading  men  of  the  old  Federal  party.  He  was 
sixteen  years  a  representative  from  the  State  of  Connecticut,  and 
had  written  a  very  good  book  on  the  civil  history  and  statistics  of 


328 


REMINISCENCES. 


this  country.  He  was  a  plain  man  of  the  old  school,  living  in  an 
old-fashioned  house  near  the  church.  In  two  or  three  weeks  after 
I  had  been  in  '  Old  Red,'  Mr.  Pitkin  called  upon  me  and  said  his 
daughters  would  be  glad  to  see  me  on  a  certain  evening.  Of 
course  I  accepted  ;  and  on  that  evening,  arrayed  in  my  unrivaled 
blue  coat,  with  brass  buttons,  cravated  and  prinked,  according  to 
the  fashion,  I  presented  myself  at  Mr.  Pitkin's.  It  was  well  I  had 
been  accustomed  to  good  society,  for  never  was  there  a  greater 
demand  for  moral  courage.  On  entering  the  parlor  I  saw  one 
young  man  leaning  on  the  mantel-piece,  and  around  the  room 
(for  I  counted  them)  were  eighteen  young  ladies !  During  the 
evening  my  comrade  and  self  were  reinforced  by  two  or  three  stu- 
dents, \)ut_ftve  made  the  whole  number  of  young  men  who  ap- 
peared during  the  evening.  The  gentleman  who  was  in  the  room 
when  I  entered  it  was  Mr.  Thomas  Perkins  of  Hartford,  who  after- 
ward married  Miss  Mary  Beecher,  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Lyman 
Beecher.  The  town  of  Farmington  furnished  but  one  beau  dur- 
ing the  evening,  and  I  found  out  afterward  that  there  were  but 
two  or  three  in  the  place  ;  I  mean  in  that  circle  of  society.  This 
was  perhaps  an  extreme  example  of  what  might  have  been  found 
in  all  the  villages  of  New  England,  where,  in  the  same  circle  of 
society,  there  were  at  least  three  girls  to  one  young  man.  You 
may  be  sure  that  when  I  looked  upon  that  phalanx  of  eighteen 
young  women,  even  the  assurance  of  a  West  Point  cadet  gave 
way.  But  the  perfect  tact  of  the  hostess  saved  me  from  trouble. 
This  was  Miss  Ann  Pitkin,  now  Mrs.  Denio,  her  husband  being 
Mr.  Denio,  late  Chief-Justice  of  New  York.  Miss  Pitkin  evidently 
saw  my  embarrassment,  which  was  the  greater  from  my  being 
near-sighted.  She  promptly  came  forward,  offered  me  a  chair, 
and,  introducing  me  to  the  ladies,  at  once  began  an  animated  con- 
versation. In  half  an  hour  I  felt  at  home,  and  was  ever  grateful 
to  Miss  Pitkin. 

"  I  will  mention  here,  as  one  of  the  characteristics  of  New 
England  manners,  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pitkin  never  once  entered 
the  room  on  this  occasion,  and  the  older  people  never  appeared 
at  any  of  the  parties  or  sleighrides  given  by  the  young  people, 
or  at  any  gatherings  not  public.  This  was  contrary  to  the  cus- 
tom of  my  father's  house,  where  people  of  all  ages  attended  the 
parties,  and  my  mother  was  the  most  conspicuous  person  and  the 
most  agreeable  of  entertainers.  .  .  .  The  evening  passed 
pleasantly  away,  and  I  was  launched  into  Farmington  society. 


APPENDIX.  329 

As  there  were  only  three  of  us  at  the  close  of  the  entertainment, 
to  escort  the  young  ladies  home,  it  was  fortunate  that  Farmington 
was  built  almost  entirely  in  one  street,  so  one  of  us  took  the  girls 
who  went  down  street ;  one,  those  who  went  up  the  street,  and  a 
third  those  who  branched  off.  Of  these  young  ladies  more  than 
half  bore  one  name,  that  of  Cowles.  I  was  told  there  were  in  that 
township  three  hundred  persons  of  the  name  of  Cowles.  There 
were  on  the  main  street  five  families  of  brothers,  in  all  of  which 
I  visited,  and  to  whom  I  was  indebted  for  many  pleasant  hours. 
.  .  .  .  The  time  had  now  come  for  me  to  leave  Farmington. 
My  sleighrides,  my  parties,  my  pleasant  visits,  and,  alas !  my 
pleasant  friends,  were  to  be  left  forever.  My  path  lay  in  differ- 
ent and  sometimes  far  less  pleasant  scenes.  I  well  remember 
the  bright  morning  on  which  I  stood  on  Mr.  Pitkin's  step,  bidding 
farewell  to  my  kind  and  gentle  friend,  Mary  Pitkin.*  Married 
and  moved  away,  she  soon  bade  farewell  to  this  world,  where 
she  seemed,  like  the  morning  flower,  too  frail  and  too  gentle  to 
survive  the  frost  and  the  storm." 

The  vast  range  of  amusements  which  now  enter  largely  into 
social  life  were  scarcely  known  sixty  years  ago.  School  exhibi- 
tions were  the  nearest  approach  to  the  theater,  and  card  parties 
were  held  of  doubtful  morality.  Deacon  Bull,  compiling  material 
for  Gov.  Tread  well  to  use  in  his  "  Statistical  History  of  Farming- 
ton,"  wrote  what  he  knew  of  the  amusements  of  the  village, 
though  both  worthies  probably  knew  less  of  amusements  than  of 
theology.  He  writes  :  "  Their  diversions  and  amusements  are 
various,  according  to  their  different  ages.  The  former  genera- 
tions had  for  their  amusements  the  more  athletic  exercises,  such 
as  wrestling,  hopping,  jumping,  or  leaping  over  walls  or  fences, 
balls,  quoits,  and  pitching  the  bar,  also  running  and  pacing 
horses,  especially  on  public  days  when  collected  from  all  parts  of 
the  town.  Some  of  these  diversions  are  still  in  fashion,  especially 
balls,  but  the  most  polite  and  fashionable  amusements  now  are 
dancing  at  balls  or  assemblies,  card-playing,  and  backgammon. 
There  are  also  hunting  and  fishing,  both  by  hook  and  seine.  The 
mountains  afford  plenty  of  game,  such  as  squirrels,  partridges, 


*  Afterward  the  wife  of  John  T.  Norton,  a  native  of  Farmington,  to  which 
place  he  returned  to  reside  before  reaching  middle  age,  after  a  period  of  very 
successful  business  in  Albany.  His  wife  died  early.  She  was  the  mother  of 
Prof.  John  P.  Norton  of  Yale  College,  who  also  died  before  reaching  middle 
age.-J.  H. 


330 


REMINISCENCES. 


and  some  turkeys  and  foxes.  The  river  abounds  with  plenty  of 
small  fish,  such  as  pike,  trout,  dace,  etc.  In  this  diversion  gentle- 
men and  ladies  both  unite,  and  in  the  pleasant  part  of  the  summer 
ride  out  to  the  most  agreeable  part  of  the  meadow  near  the  mar- 
gin of  the  river,  where  are  delightful  shade  trees  with  green  and 
pleasant  herbage  for  the  accommodation  of  a  large  number  of 
people  to  walk,  fish,  or  eat,  which  renders  the  amusement 
delightful."  Another  out-of-door  amusement  was  the  Annual 
Field  Day.  This  is  how  it  impressed  a  quiet,  unmilitary  specta- 
tor. "  September  25.  Some  rain.  Review  Day.  Street  full  of 
men  and  horses  and  carriages  and  mud,  etc.  A  regiment  of  cav- 
alry was  out  and  a  part  of  the  regiment  of  infantry.  Afternoon. 
The  troops  marched  off  into  the  meadow  and  the  town  was  quiet 
for  two  or  three  hours."  A  young  girl  observes,  "In  the  after- 
noon rode  out  in  the  stage  upon  the  Plain  with  seventeen  in  the 
stage.  Stayed  a  few  hours  and  became  quite  tired  of  field  day. 
I  was  shocked  to  see  the  indelicacy  with  which  some  of  my  sex 
appeared.  It  wounded  my  delicacy  to  see  girls  of  seventeen  en- 
circled in  the  arms  of  lads.  From  the  field  I  repaired  to  the  ball. 
I  returned  home  about  12." 

The  most  imposing  anniversary  was  Independence  Day,  not 
then  a  day  of  license  and  vandalism,  but  a  day  when  the  old 
soldiers  who  knew  well  what  independence  cost,  gathered  with 
those  who  shared  with  them  the  blessing  of  freedom,  and  listened 
to  the  story  of  their  valor,  their  sufferings,  and  their  glorious  vic- 
tory, and  all  unitedly  offered  up  to  the  God  of  Nations  a  people's 
thanksgiving.  The  exercises  were  the  reading  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  prayer,  an  oration,  and  a  patriotic  anthem. 
The  young  people  closed  the  day  with  a  ball,  and  their  elders  had 
a  dinner  with  formal  toasts  and  much  good  cheer.  Perhaps  a 
school  girl's  account  of  one  celebration  is  quite  as  good  as  the 
more  formal  reports  occasionally  given  in  the  newspapers. 
"Wednesday  the  cannon  arrived.  Some  of  the  artillery  are 
expected.  Friday  went  to  the  meeting-house  at  the  time  set,  1 1 
o'clock.  There  I  was  an  hour  and  a  half  or  more  before  the 
troops  arrived,  who  were  all  dressed  in  uniform  and  looked 
extremely  well.  They  sang  at  meeting  first  Berkely  ;  Dr.  Todd 
and  Hooker  and  Mr.  Seymour  played  on  their  instruments. 
Next,  Mr.  Washburn  made  an  excellent  prayer,  prayed  that  we 
might  be  truly  thankful  that  our  country  still  maintained  its  inde- 
pendence, and  that  if  any  came  to  meeting  that  day  more  for  the 


APPENDIX. 

amusements  of  the  day  than  for  praise  of  God,  that  they  might  be 
pardoned.  Next,  Uncle  Solly  ascended  the  pulpit  and  read  in 
their  law  book  [the  Declaration  of  Independence].  Next  came 
Dr.  Todd  with  his  oration.  It  was  a  very  good  one,  indeed. 
The  exercises  closed  with  a  hymn  which  was  composed  for  the 
occasion  by  Dr.  Dwight,  and  sung  to  the  tune  of  New  One  Hun- 
dred, written  by  Birkenhead's  brother.  Returned  home  and  soon 
went  back  to  the  tea  party  opposite  Mr.  Wadsworth's.  There  was 
another  in  the  next  lot  south.  Danced  until  twelve,  when  the  ball 
broke  up.  One  hundred  and  fifty  dined  under  a  bowery  at  Grid- 
ley's."  Thanksgiving,  the  best  enjoyed  of  all  old-time  anniver- 
saries, is  briefly  alluded  to  by  the  same  person  as  follows :  "  Tues- 
day. Thanksgiving  is  coming  and  we  are  making  preparations. 
We  keep  three  days.  Wednesday  ;  have  finished  twenty-one 
pyes  and  some  cake.  I  wished  for  your  assistance  to  flour  the 
tarts.  Thursday  attended  meeting.  The  first  I  heard  was 
'  Marriage  is  intended  between  Robert  Porter  and  Roxanna 
Root,  both  of  this  place.'  Heard  a  most  excellent  sermon  by  Mr. 
Washburn,  in  which  he  exhorted  us  in  a  most  pathetic  manner  to 
embrace  the  gospel.  The  parties  were  married  in  the  evening. 
Timothy  carried  round  the  cake  and  wine. " 

Weddings  were  mostly  informal.  We  have  one  reported  by 
Mr.  Hooker,  then  a  tutor  in  Yale  College.  "Attended  the  wed- 
ding of  Richard  Cowles  and  Fanny  Deming  at  Mrs.  Deming's. 
Large  concourse  of  relations  and  friends,  perhaps  sixty.  Not 
much  ceremony.  The  parties  were  seated  in  the  room  when  the 
company  arrived.  None  stood  up  with  them,  but  Mr.  Camp  and 
Caroline  sat  near  them,  and,  after  the  ceremony,  handed  round 
two  courses  of  cake,  three  of  wine,  and  two  of  apples.  The  com- 
pany in  the  different  rooms  then  conversed  half  an  hour,  then 
those  who  could  sing,  collected  and  sung  very  handsomely  a 
number  of  psalm  tunes,  and  half  an  hour  after  had  quite  a  merry 
cushion  dance.  I  came  away  about  nine,  leaving  still  a  large 
number  capering  around  the  cushion."  Some  of  our  older  people 
may  be  able  to  explain  the  nature  of  a  cushion  dance,  if  they 
care  to  confess  their  youthful  follies.  I  have  an  invitation  given 
some  time  afterward  to  a  wedding  for  Wednesday  evening  at  7 
o'clock,  on  which  the  recipient  years  afterward  wrote,  '  A  large 
assembly  and  a  very  pleasant  evening,  several  college  acquaint- 
ances present.  After  the  old  folks  had  gone  we  had  a  fine  cush- 
ion dance,  according  to  the  fashion  of  our  old  Puritan  fathers.' 


332  REMINISCENCES. 

At  this  latter  wedding  some  one  took  Deacon  Richards  to  task 
for  drinking  wine.  '  Sir,'  said  the  solemn  deacon,  'I  have  the 
highest  authority  for  drinking  wine  at  weddings,"  and,  forthwith, 
drained  his  glass  like  the  old  soldier  he  was. 

Ordinations  with  their  solemn  rites,  their  good  cheer,  and  their 
closing  ball,  were  notable  days  in  the  land.  In  this  town  they 
came  about  once  in  two  generations.  The  Rev.  John  Richards, 
writing  to  his  children  years  afterward,  gives  his  recollections  of 
one.  "Dr.  Porter,"  he  says,  "was  ordained  Nov.  5,  1806.  I 
remember  well  how  he  looked  in  the  pulpit,  and  how  Dr.  Dwight 
looked  with  his  green  spectacles  while  preaching  the  sermon.  I 
sat  directly  behind  Mr.  Roberts,  the  singing  master.  Just  before 
the  close  of  the  sermon  Caty  Mix  fainted.  '  There,'  said  Mr. 
Roberts  to  Col.  Tillotson,  '  we  lose  one  of  our  best  singers. '  But 
they  sang  the  Ordination  Anthem  notwithstanding,  well.  I  was 
in  raptures,  especially  at  the  verse  : 

'  The  saints  unable  to  contain 
Their  inward  joys  shall  shout  and  sing; 

The  Son  of  David  here  shall  reign, 
And  Zion  triumph  in  her  king. ' 

I  knew  not  then,  as  I  did  long  afterwards,  the  meaning  of  the 
words. " 

Besides  these  solemn  festivals,  other  diversions  of  a  lighter 
character  occasionally  though  rarely  enlivened  the  quiet  of  village 
life.  Mr.  Hooker  records :  "Dec.  i2th.  Snowy  day.  A  large, 
tawny  lion,  a  tall  and  beautiful  Peruvian  llama,  an  ostrich,  and 
two  or  three  monkeys  were  exhibited  at  Phelps's  inn.  To  gratify 
my  little  daughter  and  son,  I  took  them  thither  to  see  the  animals. 
John  rode  the  llama  about  the  barn,  while  the  keeper  led  the  ani- 
mal and  I  steadied  the  rider."  Other  occasional  amusements,  in 
which  society  of  to-day  does  not  indulge,  sometimes  came  within 
reach  of  an  easy  drive  from  the  village.  In  the  same  journal  we 
read  :  "Tuesday,  June  i,  1824.  Very  dry  and  warm,  but  other- 
wise pleasant.  After  early  breakfast  I  took  John  and  his  cousin 
Samuel  with  me  in  the  chaise  and  rode  fifteen  miles  north  to  the 
town  of  Tolland,  to  witness  the  awful  scene  of  an  Indian  man  ex- 
ecuted for  murder.  We  arrived  there  about  ten,  and,  after  put- 
ting out  the  horse  at  Col.  Smith's  inn,  walked  up  the  hill  half  a 
mile  to  view  the  gallows  and  other  preparations,  and  returned  to 
the  village  which,  by  this  time,  had  become  filled  with  company. 


APPENDIX.  333 

Probably  seven  or  eight  thousand  (and  some  say  ten  or  twelve 
thousand)  people  were  there.  .  .  .  The  cavalry  were  on  white 
horses  and  made  an  impressive  show  in  the  procession.  There 
was  a  variety  of  musical  instruments,  drums,  fifes,  bassoons  and 
bass  viols,  clarionets,  etc."* 

One  of  New  England's  proud  anniversaries  was  the  college 
commencement.  To  this  came  the  best  culture  of  the  land  to  do 
honor  to  the  embryo  statesmen  and  divines  as  they  exhibited 
their  learning  in  some  unknown  tongue  to  admiring  parents  and 
friends.  The  first  student  in  Yale  who  arrived  at  the  honor  of  a 
bachelor's  degree  was  a  Farmington  boy,  and  the  first  tutor  was 
our  second  minister'st  son.  The  town  has  very  frequently  been 
represented  on  the  commencement  stage,  but  New  Haven  was  a 
far  country  and  too  inaccessible  to  make  the  anniversary  a  popu- 
lar one.  Col.  Isaac  Cowles  writes  to  his  son  about  the  difficulty 
of  getting  him  home  at  the  end  of  the  college  term  :  "I  spoke  to 


*I  remember  well  the  incident  which  my  father  has  here  related.  The 
cousin  who  was  with  me  was  Samuel  S.  Clarke  of  Columbia,  Conn.,  who  was 
at  school  at  Mr.  Hart's  academy  at  Farmington,  and  was  a  member  of  our 
family.  I  was,  at  the  time,  8  years  old,  and  he  10.  This  paragraph  from  my 
father's  journal  is  interesting  as  showing  the  great  change  in  public  opinion 
with  regard  to  executions  from  that  which  prevailed  at  that  time.  The  curios- 
ity to  witness  such  an  awful  spectacle  was  not  a  little  barbarous  and  morbid, 
but  there  was  a  general  feeling  that  such  exhibitions  would  make  a  deep  moral 
impression  and  be  a  strong  deterrent  from  crime.  It  was  with  that  feeling,  I 
have  no  doubt,  that  my  father  took  my  cousin  and  myself  to  see  this  execu- 
tion. There  was  a  vast  concourse  of  people  from  miles  distant.  The  gallows 
was  erected  at  the  top  of  a  hillock,  where  it  could  be  seen  by  the  surrounding 
thousands.  There  was  not  one  in  the  great  assemblage  who  could  not  see 
the  wretched  murderer  swinging  in  the  air.  My  father  was  not  only  very  ten- 
der-hearted, but  full  of  good  sense  with  regard  to  such  matters,  and  it  is  some 
surprise  to  me  that  he  took  us  to  see  the  distressing  sight.  It  is  to  be  said,  as 
some  excuse  for  the  general  desire  to  witness  it,  that  it  was  a  very  rare  thing 
that  executions  had  taken  place  in  this  State,  and  there  may  have  been  some 
special  atrocity  in  the  perpetration  of  the  crime  that  created  an  unusual  inter- 
est on  the  part  of  the  public  in  seeing  the  criminal  punished.  I  was  once  tell- 
ing the  late  Judge  Waldo,  of  our  Superior  Court,  about  my  attending  the  exe- 
cution as  a  boy,  when  he  told  me  that  he  was  there.  He  must  have  been  about 
20  at  the  time.  I  have  never  seen  the  time  when  I  would  have  taken  my  son 
to  witness  an  execution,  or  would  willingly  have  looked  upon  one  myself.  — 
J.  H. 

•V  Rev.  Samuel  Hooker,  son  of  Thomas  Hooker,  the  first  minister  at  Hart- 
ford. He  was  settled  over  the  Farmington  church  from  1760  till  1797,  dying  in 
his  pastorate. —  J.  H. 


334  REMIND  CENCES 

Mr.  W the  other  day  respecting  your  getting  home.     He  will 

lead  down  the  bay  mare  for  you  to  ride  back.  In  that  case  you 
cannot  bring  your  trunk  home."  At  the  end  of  next  term  he 
writes  :  "  We  send  a  few  lines  by  Mr.  C.  Hope  he  will  be  sober 
when  he  delivers  them.  May  he  be  a  warning  to  you  and  all 
other  youth.  The  Farmington  East  India  Company  will  probably 
be  loading  their  ship  at  vacation  if  the  snow  continues  till  that 
time.  If  not,  shall  get  you  home  some  other  way.  You  must  be 
a  good  boy.  Don't  let  us  hear  any  bad  report  of  you."  A  young 
miss  who  mourned  because  her  mother  thought  her  too  young  to 
attend  the  Yale  commencement  the  next  summer,  writes  how  her 
neighbors  went  to  a  similar  entertainment:  "The  quality  of 
Hartford  and  some  of  Farmington  have  gone  to  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege to  spend  the  commencement,  viz.,  Chauncey  Gleason,  wife 
and  daughter,  Polly  Cowles,  and  Sally  Gleason,  in  one  hack  with 
a  driver,  and  black  Dick  on  horseback  to  officiate  as  servant.  Mr. 
Howe  and  Mrs.  Dolly  Norton  in  a  chaise."  This  repeated  men- 
tion of  "  Black  Dick  "  suggests  the  relation  of  society  to  the  labor 
problem  of  those  days,  then,  as  always,  an  unsolved  one.  Who 
did  the  household  drudgery  then  ?  Not  labor-saving  machin- 
ery. Not  white  servants.  You  might  hire  some  strong- 
armed  girl  to  do  some  well-defined  work,  such  as  spinning 
or  weaving,  for  a  limited  time,  but  on  an  absolute  social  equal- 
ity with  the  daughters  of  the  house.  Most  families  were  large, 
and  the  work  was  divided  among  all  the  members,  who  thus 
became  notable  housekeepers  in  their  turn.  Indians  could  not 
be  made  servants  of.  They  were  removed  too  few  generations 
from  their  untamed  ancestors  to  bear  dictation  or  continuous 
labor.  The  only  servants  were  the  blacks.  The  probate  records 
of  this  town,  which  begin  in  1769,  show  bequests  of  such  valuable 
pieces  of  property  as  "A  negro  woman  and  boy  as  slaves. "  .  .  . 
"A  negro  man  called  Daff. "  .  .  .  "A  negro  man  called  Gad. " 
.  .  .  "  My  negro  boy  called  Cambridge."  I  have  an  original 
bill  of  sale,  of  which  this  is  a  copy:  "  Know  all  men  by  these 
presents  that  I,  Samuel  Talcott  Junr.  of  Hartford,  for  the  consid- 
eration of  twenty-six  pounds,  ten  shillings,  to  me  paid  or  secured 
to  be  paid,  have  bargained  and  sold  to  James  Wadsworth  of 
Farmington  one  negro  girl  about  the  age  of  six  years,  named 
Candace,  warranted  sound  and  healthy  and  free  from  any  claim 
of  other  person  or  persons,  and  the  same  warranted  a  slave  for 
life.  Dated  at  Hartford,  September  3oth,  1763."  These  un- 


APPENDIX. 


335 


fortunate  laborers,  or  fortunate  as  some  thought  them,  were  a  few 
of  them  imported  from  the  West  Indies,  but  most  came  from 
Newport,  which  our  Quaker  brethren  made  the  center  of  the  New 
England  slave  trade.  In  1711  slave-owners  were  compelled  to 
support  the  slave  in  his  old  age,  and  not  set  him  at  liberty  to  take 
care  of  himself.  In  1774  the  importation  of  slaves  was  forbidden . 
Ten  years  later  it  was  enacted  that  all  born  after  1784  should  be 
free  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  and  in  1797  all  when  they  arrived 
at  the  age  of  twenty-one.  Black  servants,  therefore,  in  the  period 
of  which  we  write,  were  not  slaves.  Such  was  our  fathers'  solu- 
tion of  a  difficult  problem.  The  labor  problem  is  still  with  us, 
and  still  we  look  forward  to  the  final  solution  at  the  Millenium 
with  great  diversity  of  expectation. 

No  account  of  the  social  life  of  the  village  which  leaves  out 
the  religious  side  can  be  complete.  That,  however,  has  been  so 
fully  and  fairly  treated  of  in  the  Half  Century  Discourse  of  Dr. 
Porter,  that  any  attempt  to  add  to  or  condense  his  account  of 
what  he  more  than  all  others  was  most  qualified  to  write,  seems 
presumptuous.  One  great  change,  however,  in  religious  thought, 
since  he  wrote,  cannot  be  overlooked.  From  1821  to  1851  he 
records  ten  revivals,  those  great  awakenings  which  in  quick  suc- 
cession spread  over  the  community,  gathering  all  classes  from 
their  ordinary  avocations,  some  in  ecstatic  elevation  of  soul  and 
some  in  abject  terror.  That  phase  of  religious  belief  can  hardly 
be  understood  by  the  present  generation.  We  now  hear  from  the 
pulpit  more  of  character  and  less  of  eternal  punishment,  more  of 
the  love  of  God  and  less  of  his  wrath.  Truth  is  eternal  and  the 
same.  The  same  things  are  true  to-day  as  two  generations  ago, 
but  preachers  and  hearers  alike  do  not  universally  and  heartily 
believe  the  same  things. 

Such  is  an  imperfect  account  of  social  life  in  the  first  part  of 
this  century.  I  have  said  little  about  it,  preferring  to  leave  the 
actors  in  the  drama  to  tell  their  own  tale  in  their  own  words.  Of 
all  the  old  diaries  and  letters  which  have  furnished  material  for 
this  paper,  much  the  most  valuable  is  the  journal  of  Mr.  Edward 
Hooker,  some  parts  of  which  have  been  printed,  but  which  ought 
to  be  published  in  its  entirety.  Other  diaries  afford  vivid  pictures 
of  the  times  which  have  not  been  given  to  the  public,  will  not  be, 
I  trust,  and  ought  not  to  be.  Every  girl  began  one  almost  as 
soon  as  she  could  write.  Here  they  recorded  the  events  of 
every  day,  all  their  love  affairs  with  great  minuteness,  and  their 


336  REMINISCENCES. 

most  sacred  thoughts  and  aspirations.  One  of  them  began  : 
' '  Diary.  In  the  eleventh  year  of  her  age.  To  thee  I  will  relate 
the  events  of  my  youth.  I  will  endeavour  to  excel  in  learning 
and  correct  my  faults  so  that  I  may  be  enabled  to  look  backward 
with  pleasure  and  forward  with  hope."  And  right  well  did  she 
keep  her  resolutions  until  death  early  laid  his  hand  on  her  as  on 
many  of  the  brilliant  circle  of  her  companions,  and  with  trembling 
hand  she  records  her  last  farewell  to  him  she  would  have  married, 
the  last  kindly  words  of  Dr.  Todd,  and  the  last  consolations  of 
the  saintly  Washburn. 


I  have  read  with  so  great  interest  the  admirable  article  of  Mr.  Gay  that  I 
cannot  forbear  to  add  a  page  or  two  with  regard  to  my  father  and  my  own 
home  life.  I  have  spoken  of  him  briefly  in  my  introduction.  There  were  a 
few  men  of  education  and  refinement  in  Farmington  in  my  early  boyhood, 
who  with  him  made  up  a  very  choice  circle  of  intimate  friends.  Of  these  Dr. 
Eli  Todd  was  perhaps  the  most  brilliant.  My  father  was  very  fond  of  him 
and  deeply  mourned  his  death  a  few  years  later  when  at  the  head  of  the  insane 
asylum  at  Hartford.  The  Cowles  brothers,  who  became  the  wealthy  people 
of  Farmington,  were  men  of  little  cultivation,  but  of  very  great  business 
enterprise  and  ability.  It  was  generally  reported  and  believed  that  they 
had  made  half  a  million  in  their  business,  and  I  think  it  was  so.  When  the 
five  brothers  dissolved  their  partnership  a  few  years  later  it  was  generally 
understood  that  each  took  $100,000  as  his  share.  This  was  a  large  sum  for  that 
time.  They  and  their  families  were  much  given  to  free  living  and  extrava- 
gance. With  their  relatives  they  gave  a  character  to  the  town.  My  father 
had  no  fondness  for  display  and  no  sympathy  with  them  in  their  habits  in  this 
respect,  although  one  of  the  five  brothers  married  his  sister.  He  had  a  com- 
petence, but  nothing  that  could  sustain  extravagance.  My  recollection  of 
our  home  life  is  of  abundance,  but  of  very  plain  living.  Our  clothes  were 
made  from  the  wool  of  our  own  sheep,  which  was  fulled  and  woven  at  a  mill 
within  the  town  into  a  strong  gray  cloth,  which  was  then  made  into  suits  of 
clothing  by  tailoresses  who  came  around  regularly  for  the  season's  work  at  our 
house.  My  father's  clothes  were  made  of  the  same  material.  He  had  a  nice 
broadcloth  suit  for  Sunday  and  public  occasions,  but  I  think  his  ordinary  suits 
were  cut  by  a  tailor  and  made  up  by  the  tailoress.  With  this  plain  living  we 
had  a  most  healthful  and  inspiring  mental  life.  My  father  was  a  rare  Latin 
and  Greek  scholar,  and  began  quite  early  to  teach  me  those  languages.  I 
recollect  well  how,  when  I  was  a  beginner  in  Latin,  he  asked  me  to  read  some 
book  which  I  happened  to  be  then  reading,  and  how  I,  with  much  pride, 
answered  "  Ego  sum."  I  meant  by  the  "  I  am  "  to  be  understood  as  saying  "  I 
am  reading  that  book."  He  laughed  and  then  explained  to  me  that  "  Ego 
sum  "  meant  only  "  I  am,"  in  the  sense  of  "  I  exist,"  and  that  I  ought  to  have 
answered  in  some  word  meaning  "I  read."  This  illustrates  his  way  of  cor- 


APPENDIX. 


337 


recting  my  early  blunders.  We  had  also  at  this  time  a  study  of  English  at  our 
table.  If  any  one  of  us  children  made  a  mistake  either  in  our  use  of  a  word  or 
in  our  grammar,  he  would  instantly  call  our  attention  to  it,  and,  by  a  rule 
which  had  been  adopted  for  such  cases,  the  one  making  the  mistake  was 
allowed  a  minute  to  correct  it,  and,  he  failing,  any  other  of  the  children  had 
the  right  to  do  so,  and  finally,  all  failing,  he  would  himself  correct  the  error 
and  explain  wherein  it  consisted.  An  account  was  kept  among  us.  A  failure 
corrected  by  the  blunderer  went  for  nothing,  but  if  another  child  corrected  it, 
the  fact  was  set  down  to  his  credit  and  to  the  debit  of  the  other.  There  was 
no  forfeiture,  but  we  all  felt  a  great  desire  to  have  our  account,  when  ex- 
hibited, a  creditable  one.  We  had  at  that  time  a  table  full  of  children,  some 
cousins  of  mine,  children  of  my  father's  sister,  always  attending  the  Farming- 
ton  Academy  as  they  became  old  enough,  and  finding  a  hospitable  and  pleasant 
home  with  us.  We  had  rarely,  through  all  my  youth,  fewer  than  two  of  them 
at  a  time. 

I  should  perhaps  make  a  wrong  impression  if  I  should  be  understood  as 
reflecting  at  all  upon  the  intelligence  of  the  people  of  the  town  who  did  not 
belong  to  the  ambitious  and  fashionable  circle,  nor  to  that  of  the  highly 
educated  and  cultivated.  They  were  generally  intelligent,  availing  themselves 
of  all  the  opportunities  for  education  that  then  existed,  and  very  generally 
patronizing  the  village  library.  This  association  held  monthly  meetings  on  a 
Sunday  evening  at  the  librarian's,  where  the  members  drew  out  several  books 
for  the  month.  These  meetings  were  quite  largely  attended  by  the  older  people 
in  the  parlor  and  by  us  boys  in  the  kitchen.  They  were  very  enjoyable  times, 
and  I  rarely  failed  to  attend  with  my  father.  The  services  on  Sunday,  in  the 
Congregational  church,  the  only  one  in  the  village,  were  largely  attended. 
The  huge  church  was  always  well  filled,  and  very  few  stayed  away.  The  out- 
lying districts  for  several  miles  had  no  other  place  of  worship,  and  their  resi- 
dents came  in  large  wagons  and  carriages,  generally  whole  families  coming 
and  bringing  all  their  children. 

My  father  appears  by  his  journal  to  have  been  very  familiar  with  the 
fashionable  people  of  the  town,  and  with  the  attractive  young  women,  of 
whom  there  were  so  many;  but  he  never  had  a  particle  of  their  love  of  display 
and  was  never  moved  a  particle  from  his  simplicity  of  life. 

Such  a  home  life  makes  a  great  and  abiding  impression  on  a  child  of 
ordinary  intelligence,  and  it  saddens  me  to  think  how  little  is  left  of  it  for  the 
coming  generations,  j 

J-  H. 


338  REMINISCENCES. 


THE  EARLY  ABOLITION  MOVEMENT. 

Several  friends  who  have  read  the  printed  sheets  of  my  book 
have  strongly  advised  me  to  add  a  chapter  on  my  personal  knowl- 
edge of  and  participation  in  the  abolition  movement  in  New 
England,  and  I  add  a  few  pages  on  that  subject. 

After  a  few  years  of  unsettled  life,  nearly  two  of  them  on  the 
sea  and  two  in  studying  law  in  New  Haven  and  Hartford,  I  settled 
in  Farmington  in  1840.  I  was  then  twenty-four  years  old.  Before 
that  time  I  had  not  taken  much  interest  in  the  anti-slavery  move- 
ment, though  I  had  attended  a  few  public  meetings  of  the  abo- 
litionists, but  I  now  looked  thoroughly  into  the  question  and 
became  convinced  that  they  were  in  the  right  and  that  it  was  my 
plain  duty  to  join  them.  The  whole  movement  was  extremely 
unpopular,  though  it  had  gained  many  friends  and  supporters 
since  William  Lloyd  Garrison  began,  in  1831,  the  publication  of 
The  Liberator.  This  paper  he  had  most  of  the  time  published  in 
Boston,  where  he  encountered  the  most  violent  opposition,  both 
from  respectable  people  and  from  the  populace.  Mr.  William  F. 
Gordy,  in  his  recently  published  and  most  admirable  compendium 
of  the  history  of  the  United  States,  speaks  of  him  and  of  the 
abolition  movement  at  this  time  as  follows: 

"The  opposition  to  Garrison's  teachings  became  so  intense 
that  he  was  mobbed  in  the  streets  of  Boston  in  1835.  The  mob 
in  its  fury  had  almost  torn  the  clothing  from  his  body  and  was 
dragging  him  through  the  streets  with  a  rope  around  his  waist, 
when  he  was  saved  from  death  by  the  police.  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy 
was  mobbed  and  murdered  in  Illinois  in  1837  for  printing  an 
abolition  newspaper,  and  abolition  speakers  became  accustomed 
to  showers  of  eggs  and  stones  at  public  meetings.  But  in  spite 
of  all  the  scorn  and  contempt  heaped  upon  them,  in  the  North 
and  in  the  South,  the  heroic  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  his 
brave  followers  would  not  be  silenced.  They  were,  like  most 
reformers,  extreme  in  their  views  and  unwise  in  their  methods, 
but  they  were  right  in  their  leading  idea  that  slavery  was  wrong. 
Their  sincerity  of  purpose  had  its  influence  and  won  the  sym- 
pathy of  many,  who  joined  in  forming  abolition  societies,  which 
by  1837  included  probably  150,000  members.  Among  them  were 
two  of  the  ablest  defenders  of  the  anti-slavery  crusade,  Wendell 


APPENDIX. 


339 


Phillips,  the  anti-slavery  orator,  and  John  Quincy  Adams,  the 
anti-slavery  statesman." 

The  New  York  Nation  said,  some  time  ago,  in  an  article  on 
Garrison,  that  no  one  not  living  at  that  time  could  have  any  idea 
of  the  state  of  public  opinion  prevailing  during  the  early  part  of 
his  work;  it  was  a  few  fanatics  on  one  side  and  all  society  on  the 
other.  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  the  Boston  statesman,  on  being  asked 
by  some  anxious  citizen  who  had  great  confidence  in  his  political 
wisdom,  whether  there  was  any  danger  that  this  abolition  move- 
ment would  succeed,  replied  that  there  was  no  danger  at  all,  for, 
said  he,  "all  the  journals  in  the  country  are  opposed  to  it,  and 
there's  only  one  paper  .that  advocates  it,  and  that  is  published  by 
a  fanatic  and  a  nigger. " 

At  an  anti-slavery  meeting  held  one  evening  in  the  lecture 
room  of  the  Congregational  church  in  Farmington,  which  was 
well  filled,  and  addressed  by  Rev.  Amos  Phelps,  one  of  the 
gentlest  and  most  moderate,  yet  most  impressive  of  speakers,  a 
stone  was  thrown  with  great  violence  through  the  window  back 
of  the  desk  at  which  he  was  speaking,  which  passed  close  by  his 
head,  and  went  across  the  hall  to  the  wall  on  the  other  side.  The 
miscreant  who  threw  it  must  have  meant  to  hit  Mr.  Phelps's  head, 
but  fortunately  it  missed  it,  and  failed  to  hit  any  of  the  audience. 
I  saw  this  myself.  A  majority  of  the  audience  were  women. 
Some  of  the  best  of  the  Farmington  people,  both  men  and  women, 
had  early  become  interested  in  the  movement,  and  the  village 
was  one  of  the  best  known  stations  on  what  was  known  as  the 
"Underground  Railroad."  This  name  was  given  to  villages 
where  fugitive  slaves  were  sheltered  and  helped  on  their  way. 
They  were  always  harbored  there  and  helped.  Some  remained 
there  and  worked  for  the  farmers,  relying  on  their  protecting 
them  or  helping  them  to  escape  if  any  attempt  should  be  made 
to  capture  them.  Among  these  were  some  very  smart  young 
men.  I  remember  particularly  one  named  Henry,  I  forget  his 
other  name,  who  lived  a  long  time  with  one  of  our  citizens,  and 
was  much  liked  by  everybody  who  knew  him.  He  was  fine 
looking,  manly,  and  energetic.  After  he  had  been  in  Farmington 
for  several  months  a  fugitive  slave  from  his  old  home  in  South 
Caralina  came  along,  and  told  him  how,  after  his  (Henry's)  escape 
the  year  before,  his  master  had  charged  his  old  mother  with 
aiding  him  to  escape,  and  had  given  her  a  terrible  flogging  on  her 
bare  body.  This  so  exasperated  him  that  he  determined  to  go 


340  REMINISCENCES. 

back  to  South  Carolina  and  comfort  his  mother,  as  well  as  take 
revenge  on  his  old  master  by  helping  other  slaves  to  escape.  He 
went  back,  saw  and  comforted  his  old  mother,  and  got  up  a  com- 
pany of  eight  slaves,  who  started  north  under  his  guidance. 
They  had  all  sorts  of  perils  and  escapes  on  the  way,  but  all  got 
through  and  made  their  way  to  Canada,  except  one,  whom  they 
buried  on  the  way.  This  was  the  wife  of  a  young  man  in  the 
company.  She  was  about  to  have  a  child  and  soon  became  unable 
to  walk,  and  her  husband  and  Henry  took  turns  in  carrying  her. 
Each  made  a  seat  for  her  with  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  back, 
and  she  sat  in  this  seat,  with  her  back  against  his.  They  had 
traveled  thus  for  several  nights  until,  worn  out  with  weariness 
and  anxiety,  she  was  unable  to  go  further,  and  they  all  stopped 
for  her  to  die,  and  then  buried  her  in  the  darkness  in  a  secluded 
spot,  and  went  on  their  anxious  and  perilous  way. 

I  remember  another  fugitive,  who,  during  his  short  stop  in 
Farmington,  told  a  group  of  us  this  story.  He  was  born  and 
raised  in  Virginia,  and  married  a  slave  girl  there  who  belonged  to 
his  master,  and  had  three  or  four  small  children.  At  this  time 
slaves  were  raised  in  Virginia  to  be  sold  for  the  cotton  fields  of 
the  South,  a  large  business  of  that  sort  being  carried  on.  This 
negro  was  working  in  a  field,  when  a  slave  trader  came  along  and 
bought  him  and  several  other  negroes  of  his  master.  They  were 
attached  to  a  coffle  of  slaves  that  the  trader  was  taking  along, 
being  handcuffed  and  fastened  together.  He  was  not  allowed  to 
go  home  to  see  his  family  or  to  get  anything  to  take  with  him, 
but  as  the  coffle  passed  his  cabin,  quite  a  distance  away,  his  wife 
saw  him  and  ran  out  screaming  towards  him.  The  trader  upon 
this  drew  out  his  pistol,  and,  pointing  it  towards  her,  threatened 
to  shoot  her  if  she  came  another  step.  She  stopped  and  the 
coffle  passed  by,  too  far  off  for  him  to  call  to  his  wife,  and  he 
never  saw  her  or  his  children  again. 

We  heard  many  such  stories,  some  of  them  very  thrilling, 
from  the  fugitives  who  came  through  Farmington,  and  these 
stories,  heard  by  us,  or  read  in  The  Liberator,  brought  many 
friends  to  the  cause. 

Mr.  Gordy,  in  the  passage  which  I  have  quoted  from  his  excel- 
lent history,  says  of  the  abolitionists  that  "  they  were  like  most 
reformers,  extreme  in  their  views  and  unwise  in  their  methods." 
They  were  men  and  women  who  were  thoroughly  in  earnest,  and 
not  very  conciliatory  in  their  utterances,  but  perhaps  few  of  their 


APPENDIX. 


341 


methods  ran  more  against  a  settled  prejudice  of  the  public  than 
their  employing  women  speakers  as  advocates  of  their  cause. 
Among  these  speakers  was  Abby  Kelly,  a  young  married  woman, 
who  went  about  on  lecturing  tours  with  her  husband,  himself  a 
speaker.  I  repeatedly  heard  her,  and  she  has  never  been  sur- 
passed as  an  effective  speaker  by  any  of  the  eloquent  women  to 
whom  the  public  listens  so  patiently  and  even  delightedly  to-day. 
But  we  can  see  how  offensive  it  was  to  the  prevailing  sense  of 
propriety,  in  the  fact  that  a  large  part  of  the  abolitionists,  who 
were  enlisted  in  the  cause,  and  were  true  and  earnest  reformers, 
left  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  because  of  it,  and  formed 
a  new  association  called  the  American  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery 
Society.  They  were  also  extreme  in  their  views,  according  to  the 
prevailing  opinions  with  regard  to  slavery,  but  a  little  incident 
shows  how  they  were  unjustly  judged 'by  their  opponents,  who 
had,  far  more  than  they,  the  ear  of  the  public  and  almost  total 
control  of  the  journals  of  the  day.  Dr.  Bailey,  a  few  years  later, 
published  an  anti-slavery  paper  in  Washington.  He  was  a  man 
of  remarkable  ability  as  an  editor,  fair  minded  and  courteous, 
and  greatly  respected  by  his  brother  journalists  of  Washington. 
It  was  in  this  paper  that  Mrs.  Stowe's  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  was 
first  published  as  a  serial.  Dr.  Bailey  in  one  of  his  issues  gave  a 
clear  and  condensed  statement  of  his  position  towards  slavery. 
The  other  editors  of  the  city  were  so  struck  with  his  reason- 
ableness and  moderation  that  they  at  once  commended  his 
article  for  its  fairness,  though  of  course  not  agreeing  with  him 
in  his  condemnation  of  slavery,  but  they  said,  why  could  not  the 
first  abolitionists  have  been  so  moderate  and  reasonable — instead 
of  stirring  up  mobs  and  violence  by  their  extreme  claims.  Dr.  B. 
waited  for  them  to  commit  themselves  fully  on  this  point,  and 
then  said  in  his  paper  that  what  he  had  published  as  his  position 
on  the  slavery  question  was  taken  from  the  constitution  of  the 
first  anti-slavery  society. 

My  father  was  very  decided  in  his  condemnation  of  slavery, 
but  had  great  fear  of  what  would  come  from  the  emancipation  of 
the  slaves,  and  of  the  exasperation  of  the  South  over  the  assault 
upon  it  by  the  abolitionists.  He  had  lived  at  the  South  and  had 
warm  friends  there.  He  had  while  there,  at  a  dinner  given  to 
some  public  men,  expressed  in  a  toast  the  hope  that  the  time 
would  come  when  there  would  not  be  a  slave  in  the  country,  upon 
which  one  of  the  guests  replied  by  saying  that  he  hoped  he 


342  REMINISCENCES. 

should  be  under  the  turf  first.  Yet  I  became  an  avowed  aboli- 
tionist before  he  did.  His  brother  John,  who  was  a  leading  law- 
yer in  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  with  whom  my  father  studied 
law,  and  with  whom  he  expected  to  go  into  partnership,  would 
never  own  a  slave.  (Ante  p.  239.) 

The  free  blacks  of  the  North  were  generally  held  in  contempt 
except  by  the  anti-slavery  people,  who  did  what  they  could  to 
elevate  them  and  secure  them  fair  treatment.  I  remember  that 
at  one  time,  about  1840,  a  respectable-looking  and  decently-clad 
black  man  came  into  the  Sunday-school  of  which  I  was  superin- 
tendent, and  took  a  seat  near  the  door.  I  went  to  him,  after  the 
session  closed,  and  asked  him  if  he  would  go  over  to  the  church 
with  me.  He  said  he  would,  and  I  took  him  over  and  gave  him  a 
seat  in  my  pew.  Such  a  sight  had  probably  never  been  seen  in 
that  church  before.  There  had  been,  as  in  most  of  the  churches 
in  Connecticut,  a  negro  pew,  close  by  the  door  on  the  lower 
floor,  and  in  the  gallery,  and  probably  no  negro  had  before  sat 
elsewhere  in  our  church.  Everybody  stared,  but  there  was  no 
other  demonstration  of  displeasure,  but  after  the  service  one  of 
the  church  members  told  me  I  had  done  more  to  break  up 
the  church  than  anything  that  had  happened  since  it  was  estab- 
lished. Yet  it  was  not  over  five  years  later  that  Rev.  Dr.  Por- 
ter, our  pastor,  exchanged  with  Rev.  Mr.  Pennington  of  Hart- 
ford, one  of  the  blackest  of  negroes,  and  we  were  all  astonished 
at  seeing  the  pulpit  thus  occupied. 

Of  course,  on  starting  as  a  lawyer  in  Farmington,  I  encountered 
much  unfriendliness  from  those  who  were  bitter  against  the  anti- 
slavery  movement.  A  relative  of  mine,  then  a  middle-aged  man 
and  a  leading  lawyer  in  the  state,  who  was  one  of  the  last 
of  men  to  interpose  his  advice,  said  to  me  that  he  must 
advise  me  as  to  the  course  I  was  taking  in  identifying  my- 
self with  the  abolitionists  —  that  they  were  so  unpopular  that  it 
would  very  seriously  injure  my  chances  of  getting  into  business. 
I  felt,  however,  that  if  I  turned  my  back  on  the  abolition  move- 
ment I  should  be  a  traitor  to  God  and  man,  and  I  saw  no  way  but 
to  go  on  as  I  had  begun.  It  very  likely  made  it  slower  work  for 
me  to  get  into  business,  but  I  do  not  think  it  made  any  very  seri- 
ous difference  —  certainly  none  in  the  end,  and  indeed  I  think  I 
have  stood  better  for  it  in  all  my  later  life.  In  1850, 1  was  elected 
by  the  abolition  voters  of  Farmington  to  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives in  the  state  legislature,  the  only  time  that  I  was  ever  a 


APPENDIX.  343 

member  of  that  body.  There  were  about  forty  anti-slavery  voters 
in  town  and  they  held  the  balance  of  power,  and  so  managed  as 
to  carry  in  their  candidate  after  a  number  of  ballotings. 

I  now  look  back  with  much  satisfaction  at  that  early  effort  to 
do  my  duty  and  to  aid  a  cause  of  vast  consequence  to  the  country, 
and  the  success  of  which  has  been,  perhaps,  its  greatest  blessing. 

I  ought  not,  however,  to  take  to  myself  much  credit  for  the 
stand  I  took  in  this  matter.  My  convictions  were  decided,  and 
by  a  necessity  of  my  nature  dominated  me,  but  I  was  devoting 
myself  earnestly  to  my  profession,  and  did  not  give  to  this  cause 
the  time  and  zeal  that  so  many  others  did.  The  hardest  and 
most  trying  part  of  the  work  had  been  done  by  those  who  began 
it  nearly  ten  years  before. 

I  ought,  injustice  to  my  brother-in-law,  Hon.  Francis  Gillette, 
afterwards  a  member  of  the  United  States  Senate,  to  state  that  he 
was  one  of  the  earliest  abolitionists,  a  man  of  great  earnestness 
and  one  of  the  most  eloquent  speakers  of  the  time.  J.  H. 


MRS.  MARY  HOOKER  BURTON'S  LETTER 

TO  MRS.  MARY  CLEMMER  AMES  IN  DEFENSE 

OF  HER  MOTHER. 

I  was  about  closing  my  volume  with  the  next  preceding  article, 
when  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  ought  to  include  a  letter  which  our 
daughter,  Mrs.  Mary  H.  Burton,  wrote  in  1871  to  Mrs.  Mary  Clem- 
mer  Ames  of  Washington  in  reference  to  an  article  written  by 
the  latter  grossly  misrepresenting  and  ridiculing  some  action  of 
her  mother  when  attending  a  woman-suffrage  convention  at 
Washington.  Mrs.  Burton's  death  in  1886,  at  the  age  of  forty, 
was  an  almost  overwhelming  affliction  to  us,  and  remains  a  great 
and  abiding  sorrow.  It  is  due  to  her  memory  that  this  earnest 
defense  of  her  mother  should  be  preserved,  while  it  is  to  the 
latter  a  richly-deserved  tribute. 

The  convention  was  largely  attended.  A  petition  had  been 
presented  to  Congress  asking  for  legislation  in  favor  of  woman 
suffrage,  and  a  committee  of  Congress  had  invited  them  to  appear 
before  it  and  advocate  their  petition  in  person.  A  large  repre- 


344  REMINISCENCES. 

sentation  of  women  assembled  in  an  ante-room  of  the  Capitol 
and  were  waiting  for  the  time  for  going  before  the  committee, 
when  some  one  proposed  that  they  have  a  prayer  for  God's  bless- 
ing on  their  effort.  Others  at  once  concurred,  and  Mrs.  Hooker 
was  called  upon  to  pray.  She  did  so,  offering  a  most  reverent 
and  fervent  petition  to  God.  Mrs.  Ames  was  at  this  time  an  able 
and  popular  correspondent  of  a  New  York  paper.  She  was  not 
present  at  this  meeting,  but  she  gave  what  purported  to  be  a 
description  of  it  for  her  paper,  letting  loose  her  too  facile  wit  as 
she  did  so,  describing  in  a  grotesque  way  the  personal  appearance 
and  manner  of  Mrs.  Hooker  as  she  prayed.  The  amusing  article 
went  the  rounds  of  the  press  and  was  seen  by  Mrs.  Burton.  In 
her  indignation  at  the  treatment  of  her  mother  she  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  Mrs.  Ames: 

MRS.  MARY  CLEMMER  AMES. 

Dear  Madam  :  —  Will  you  permit  the  daughter  of  Mrs.  Isabella 
Beecher  Hooker  to  address  you  ? 

I  read  yesterday  the  enclosed  extract  from  a  New  York 
paper.  When  you  used  your  ready  wit  to  make  a  clever  sketch 
of  Mrs.  Hooker  you  of  course  knew  that  however  you  might 
entertain  scores  of  readers,  you  must  necessarily  wound  many  to 
whom  she  is  near  and  dear ;  but  I  venture  to  believe  you  did  not 
know  how  cruelly  unjust  you  were  to  Mrs.  Hooker  herself.  If 
you  knew  her  in  daily  life  as  tender  mother  and  devoted  wife, 
loving  grandmother  and  loyal  friend,  how  differently  you  would 
have  spoken  of  her.  Seeing  her  with  her  children  you  would 
think:  "This  woman  lives  only  for  her  children"  ;  with  her  hus- 
band, you  would  say,  ' '  What  an  ideal  marriage  !  Was  ever  wife 
so  devoted  or  husband  so  appreciative  before?" — as  housekeeper 
you  would  say :  "  What  executive  ability  she  shows  !  no  detail  of 
house  or  grounds  but  is  under  her  supervision "  ;  as  hostess, 
among  the  greenery  of  her  petted  plants,  in  her  bright  parlors, 
you  would  say,  "  How  genial !  How  motherly  !  " — in  her  library,  at 
her  desk,  if  you  looked  over  her  shoulder,  you  would  find  her 
reading  carefully  on  a  score  of  subjects  besides  woman  suffrage, 
and,  if  you  watched  long  enough,  you  would  surely  say :  "  In  what 
science,  art  or  philosophy  is  she  not  interested?  Suffrage  is  but 
one  of  the  subjects  upon  which  that  busy  brain  and  large  heart 
are  working."  If  you  were  a  neighbor  and  sick,  you  would  send 
for  her  first  of  all,  knowing  her  presence  of  mind  in  an  emer- 
gency and  the  infinite  tenderness  of  her  heart.  As  she  would  be 
the  first  to  come  to  you  so  would  she  be  the  last  to  leave  you.  If 
you  were  poor  and  in  trouble  you  would  turn  to  her  as  surely  as 
the  magnet  to  the  pole.  If  you  were  her  friend  you  would  rest 
secure,  knowing  that  she  would  never  change,  and  that,  whatever 
others  might  say  of  you,  she  would  be  loyal  to  the  last.  If  you 


APPENDIX. 


345 


were  her  enemy  you  might  also  rest  secure  ;  she  would  never  stab 
you,  never  bear  malice,  and  would  forgive  you  and  forgive  you. 

The  question  of  woman  suffrage  is  little  discussed  in  our 
family.  My  mother  is  content  to  have  each  one  hold  her  own 
opinion.  I  have  never  heard  my  mother  speak  in  public.  But, 
knowing  the  woman,  I  know  you  have  misrepresented  both  her 
manner  and  speech.  Whatever  she  does  she  does  with  her 
whole  heart,  but  that  she  would  appear  other  than  an  earnest, 
womanly,  modest  woman,  absorbed  in  (to  her)  a  great  cause,  is 
impossible.  That  you  have  represented  her  otherwise  to  thou- 
sands of  readers  who  can  never  see  and  know  her  will  some  day 
be  a  matter  of  regret  to  you,  if  you  ever  come  to  know  her  as 
she  is. 

If  you  were  yourself  less  of  a  true  woman  than  I  think  you 
are,  I  never  should  have  addressed  you.  Your  name  is  associated 
only  with  honor,  respect,  and  cleverness  as  a  writer  ;  therefore  I 
felt  the  stab  of  your  pen  the  more  keenly ;  therefore  I  appeal  to 
you  to  guard  your  sparkling  wit,  lest  it  scorch  where  it  should 
only  illuminate. 

I  am,  dear  madam,  very  truly  yours, 

MARY  HOOKER  BURTON. 

Mrs.  Burton  was  much  disappointed  at  receiving  no  answer 
from  Mrs.  Ames,  who  took  no  notice  of  the  letter.  It  was  after- 
wards ascertained  through  a  friend  at  Washington  that  she  had 
duly  received  it. 


23 


INDEX. 


ABOLITION  movement,  338. 

Abram  and  Zimri,  poem  by  Clarence 

Cook,  198. 

Accident,  bicycle,  225. 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  339. 
Address  at  Rev.  Dr.  Porter's  semi-cen- 
tennial, 114. 
Alabama,   fight  with    the   Kearsarge, 

209. 

American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  341. 
American   and    Foreign  Anti-Slavery 

Society,  341. 

American  Missionary  Association,  26. 
Ames,  Mrs.  Mary  Clemmer,  344. 
Amistad,  case  of  the,  23,  25. 
Amusements  in  Farmington,  325,  329. 
Anarchy  and  its  philosophy,  228. 
Anderson,  John    T.  and  Francis  T., 

32. 
Anthony,    Susan    B.,   5oth    birthday, 

89 ;    poem    on   that   occasion,    90 ; 

trial  before  Judge  Hunt,   163. 
Appeal  to  young  men,  307. 
Arnold,  Dr.  Thomas,  73. 
Ass,  loosing  the,  106. 
Atlantic  Dock  Co.,  223. 

BACON,  Rev.  Dr.,  Dr.  Burton's  address 

on,  95. 

Bailey,  Dr.  Gamaliel,  341. 
Baker,  Capt.  Obed,  99. 
Baldwin,  Gov.  R.  S.,  9,  191. 
Baptism,  13. 
Barnard,  Dr.   Henry,  great   speech  at 

commencement  dinner,  76. 
Barton,  Clara,  on  woman  suffrage,  246. 
Batavia  (Java),  193. 
B ,  General,  219. 


Beecher,  H.  W.,  controversy  j  with 
Rev.  Dr.  Parker,)  78. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Dr.  Edward,  no,  183, 
259 

Beecher,  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman,  9. 

Beecher,  Mary,  328. 

Bicycle  accident,  225,  253. 

Birth  and  parentage,  9. 

Bits  of  verse,  265. 

Borneo  Pirates,  193. 

Bowles,  Samuel,  65,  253. 

Bull,  Dea.,  323. 

Burlington  man's  series  of  misadven- 
tures, 188. 

Burton,  Mary  Hooker,  344. 

Burton,  Rev.  Dr.  Nathaniel  J.,  sketch 
of,  92  ;  his  habit  of  procrastination, 
94 ;  address  on  Rev.  Dr.  Bacon, 
95  ;  letters  from  Europe,  96;  resi- 
dence at  Nook  Farm,  171. 

Bushnell,  Rev.  Dr.  Horace,  19. 

Butler,  C.  J.,  death  of,  136. 

CAIRNS,  Martin,  35. 

Canal,  Farmington,  16. 

Candor,  275. 

Capaces  Femintz,  34. 

Captain  D  of  the  ship  P,  195. 

Chamberlin,  Franklin,  72. 

Chapman,    Charles,  anecdotes    about, 

48  ;  rhymes  written  by  him  in^court, 

142. 

Chapman,  Dr.  John,  205. 
Church,  Farmington,  12. 
Clemens,  Samuel  L.,  171. 
College  Commencement,  333. 
Collyer,    Rev.    Robert,    letter    from, 

174. 


(347) 


348 


JA/DEX. 


Colored  people  and  slaves  in  Connect- 
icut, 22. 

Conversation  Club,  320. 

Cowles  Brothers,  Farmington,  314. 

Cowles,  Egbert,  324. 

Cowles,  Horace,  his  great  probity, 
191. 

Cowles,  Samuel  S.,  32. 

Cowles,  Gen.  Solomon,  21. 

Cowles,  William  and  Ezekiel,  197. 

Crowninshield,  Capt.  U.  S.  N.,  213. 


D ,  Capt.,  195. 

Daggett,  C.  J.,  131. 
Daggett,  Henry,  16. 
D.D.,  how  I  became  a,  37. 
' '  Daily  Strength  for  Daily  Needs, "  297. 
Damon  and  Pythias,  197. 
Dansville  sanatorium,  101. 
Davis,  Paulina  Wright,  280. 
Day,  Mrs.  John  C.,  10. 
Deming,  Chauncey,  321. 
Denio,  J.,  328. 
Dickinson,  Anna,  280. 
Disclaimer,    Mr.    Hungerford's  anec- 
dote de,  131. 

Dog-fight  suit  and  poem,  41. 
Du  Plan,  the  Gentleman  of  Alais,  303. 
Dwight,  President  Timothy,  321. 

EATON,  W.  W.,42. 

Echo  Farm,  144. 

Education,  10,  336. 

Eliot,  George,  208. 

Ellsworth,  Judge  W.  W.,  35,  131. 

English,  study  at  table,  337. 

Equal  Rights  Club,  177. 

Evarts,  William  M.,  9,  75. 

Execution  of  an  Indian,  332. 

FAMILY  worship  at  my  father's,  15. 

Farmington,  beauty  of  situation,  II  ; 
mails  and  postage  at,  17  ;  ancient 
church,  12  ;  social  life  in,  19  ;  for- 


mer   commercial    importance,    27  ; 

history  of,  323. 
Farmington  Academy,  10. 
Farmington  Canal,  16. 
Fessenden,  Rev.  Mr.,  20. 
Flora  slave  case,  31. 
Foster,  J.,   sketch    of,  157  ;  dinner  at 

his  house,    143  ;   remarkable  verbal 

memory,  143. 

Fourth  Church,  Hartford,  311. 
Fourth  of  July,  330. 
Fugitive  Slave  Act,  37. 
Fugitive  Slaves,  339. 

GARRISON,  Wm.  Lloyd,  338. 

General  £.,  219. 

Gillette,  Francis,  170,  343. 

Godwin,  Mary  Wolstencraft,  317. 

Golden  Wedding,  173. 

Goodrich,  Capt.,  22. 

Gordy's  History  of  United  States,  338. 

Granger,    J.,    humorous     rhymes     in 

court,  152. 
Guilford,  a  summer  at,  108. 

HALL,  Mary,  admission  to  bar,  145. 

Hall,  Gideon,  45. 

Hanchett,  Capt.,  31. 

Hart,  Simeon,  10. 

Hawley,  J.  R.,  40,  171,  175. 

Hemingway,  Rev.  Mr.,  31. 

Heraldry,  316. 

Hillhouse,  James,  16. 

Hinman,  Ch.  J.,  death  of,  135. 

History  of  Farmington,  323. 

Hoar,  Senator,  9. 

Home  education,  336. 

Hooker,  Edward,  9,  15,318,  326,  336. 

Hooker,  Commr.  Edw.,  27. 

Hooker,  Dr.  Edward  B.,  10,  112. 

Hooker,  Isabella  Beecher,  9,  109,  170, 

173-  344- 

Hooker,  Isabel  K.,  109. 
Hooker,  James,  314,  317. 


INDEX. 


349 


Hooker,  John,  birth  and  parentage,  9; 
baptism ,  1 3 ;  at  Farmington  Academy, 
10;  at  Yale  College,  10;  voyages,  10, 
28,  192;  taken  by  pirates,  27;  teach- 
ing in  Farmington  Academy,  33 ; 
study  of  law,  10  ;  marriage,  10  ;  re- 
moval to  Hartford,  10;  offer  of 
pastorate  at  Farmington,  24  ;  pur- 
chase of  Rev.  Dr.  Pennington,  a 
fugitive  slave,  39  ;  address  at  Rev. 
Dr.  Porter's  semi-centennial,  114; 
deacon  at  Hartford,  282  ;  at  Dans- 
ville  Sanatorium,  101;  reporter  of 
Supreme  Court,  124;  offer  of  a  judge- 
ship,  121,  122  ;  life  at  Nook  Farm, 
i?o;  golden  wedding,  173;  bicycle 
accident,  225;  views  on  theology, 
281;  views  on  religion,  295. 

Hooker,    John,    of    South     Carolina, 

237- 

Hooker,  Noadiah,  34. 

Hooker,  Rev.  Samuel,  9. 

Hooker,  Rev.  Thomas,  9,  in. 

Hubbard,  Gov.  R.  D.,  53;  lines  on 
his  death,  62;  his  obituary  addresses, 
63  ;  urges  my  acceptance  of  a  judge- 
ship,  123 ;  inauguration  as  gov- 
ernor, 144. 

Hungerford,  William,  his  anecdote  de 
disclaimer,  131  ;  obituary  address 
by  Gov.  Hubbard,  64. 

Hunt,  J.,  and  Susan  B.  Anthony's 
trial,  163. 

Hutchinson,  John,  183. 

IDEAL  woman,  113. 
Imlay,  William  H.,  170,222. 
Incidents  of  Supreme  Court  reporter- 
ship,  129. 

Independence  Day,  330. 
Ingersoll,  Gov.,  189. 
Introductory  matter,  additional,  185. 
Irishman,  my  first  sight  of,  17. 
Irving,  Edward,  291. 


JACKSON,  Dr.,  cure  at  Dansville,  N. 
Y.,  101. 

Javanese  customs  official,  193. 

Johnson,  Prof.,  282. 

Judges'  opinions,  asked  for  by  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  132. 

Judgeship,  desire  for,  120. 

Judicial  friends,  155. 

KEARSARGE,  The,  fight  with  the  Ala- 
bama, 209  ;  visit  to  her  at  Ports- 
mouth navy  yard,  209. 

Kelly,  Abby,  280,  341. 

LATIN,  early  teaching  by  my  father, 
336. 

Legislature,  my  election  to,  343. 

Letters  received  at  golden  wedding, 
Rev.  Robert  Collyer,  174;  Joseph 
R.  Hawley,  175;  Frances  E.  Wil- 
lard,  175. 

Life  at  Nook  Farm,  170. 

Linonian  Society,  75. 

Litchfield,  Miss  Pierce's  School,  315. 

Loomis,  J.,  speech  at  banquet  on  his 
retirement,  146  ;  letter  de  reporter- 
ship,  127  ;  my  surviving  judicial 
friend,  155. 

Lovejoy,  Elijah  P.,  338. 

Lying  to,  193. 

MANSFIELD,  Edw.  D.,  326. 

Marriage,  9. 

Matches,  friction,  19. 

Matson,  Wm.  N.,  124. 

Meeting-house  at  Farmington,  12. 

Mendi  Mission,  24. 

Methodist  revival  in  Farmington,  185. 

Militia  training,  18. 

Mix,  Capt.,  314. 

Montez  &  Ruiz,  25. 

"  Moral  Society,"  320. 

Moseley,  Samuel,  214. 

Mygatt,  Henry,  107. 


350 


INDEX. 


NOOK  Farm,  life  at,  170. 
Norton,  Prof.  John  P.,  329. 
Norton,  John  T.,  329. 

OBITUARY  addresses  of  Gov.  Hubbard, 

63- 

Olmsted,  Prof.  Denison,  114. 
Onion  stealer,  107. 
Opinions  of  Judges,  asked  for  by  the 

General  Assembly,  132. 
Ordinations,  331. 
Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  22,  339. 
Ox  that  returned  from  Ticonderoga,  34. 

PARDEE,   J.,  some   of  his  wit,    128; 

sketch  of  him,   161. 
Park,  J.,  123,  124;  C.  J.,  136. 
Parker,    Rev.    Dr.   and    Henry  Ward 

Beecher,  78. 
Parsons,  Francis,  42. 
Pastorate  at  Farmington  proposed,  24. 
Patton,  Rev.' William  W.,  106. 
Pennington,  Rev.  Dr.  James  W.  C., 

23,  38,  342. 
Perkins,    Thomas    C.,    72,    122,    171, 

328. 

Phelps,  Rev.  Amos,  339. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  339. 
Pianos  in  Farmington,  317. 
Pierce,  Miss,  her  school  at  Litchfield, 

315. 

Pirates  of  Borneo  and  Sumatra,  194". 

Pirates,  taken  by,  27. 

Pitkin,  Ann,  328. 

Pitkin,  Mary,  329. 

Pitkin,  Hon.  Timothy,  321,  327. 

Poems,  on  present  to  court  messen- 
ger, 36  ;  on  dog-fight  suit,  43  ;  on 
death  of  Gov.  Hubbard,  62  ;  on 
burning  of  cure  at  Dansville,  103  ; 
on  dedication  of  new  cure,  104  ;  on 
women  founders  of  New  England, 
112  ;  collection  of  poems,  265. 

Policing  the  world,  241. 


Porter,   Rev.  Dr.  Noah,  13,  114,  217, 

282,  322,  326,  342. 
Postal  service  at  Farmington,  17. 
Prayer-meetings  at  Park  church,  200. 
Progress  of  women,  279. 
Purity  of  life  —  appeal  to  young  men, 

307- 

"  RED   behind   and   white  in  front," 

52- 

"  Red  College,"  315. 
Reed,  Fredus,  anecdote  about,  187. 
Religion,  295  ;  in  Farmington,  335. 
Reportership  of   Supreme  Court,    10, 

124  ;  incidents  of,  129. 
Resignation  of  Reportership,  125. 
Rhodes  v.  Wells,  41. 
Richards,  Dea.  Samuel,  17,  331. 
Romilly,  Sir  John,  72. 
Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  account  of,  70,  71, 

259,  305. 

Romilly  acts,  71,  304. 
Rothschild,  banker  at  Paris,  91. 
Rowe,  Chauncey,  185. 
Ruggles,  Nathan,  316. 
Ruiz  &  Montez,  25. 

S ABBA-DAY  hoUSCS,   13. 

Sailors  from  Farmington,  314. 
Sanatorium,  Dansville,  N.  Y.,  101. 
Sanford,  J.,  sketch  of,  155;  death  of, 

122. 

Sanford,  Henry  S.,  141. 
Schools  at  Farmington,  319. 
Seymour,    Chief-Justice,    sketch     of, 

159  ;  speech  at  banquet  on  retiring, 

137- 

Seymour,  Judge  Edw.  W.,  death  of, 
150  ;  sketch  of,  by  Judge  Fenn,  151. 

Shipman,  Judge  William  D.,  124. 

Slavery  in  Connecticut,  22,  188,  334. 

Slave  case,  Flora,  31. 

Slaves,  fugitive,  harbored  at  Farming- 
ton,  338  ;  some  of  their  stories,  338. 


INDEX. 


351 


Smith,  Rev.  Dr.  C.  B.,  answer  to  his 
attack  on  spiritualism,  260. 

Socialism,  231. 

Social  life  in  Farmington,  313. 

South  Carolina  University,  239. 

Spiritualism,  247,  spiritualism  and 
good  morals,  263. 

State,  upbuilding  of,  299. 

Statistical  History  of  Farmington,  323. 

"  Stoop-endous  house,"  75. 

Storrs,  C.  J.,  memorandum  of  deci- 
sion in  Latin,  129  ;  death  of,  121. 

Storrs  and  Williams,  Chief- Justices, 
compared,  118. 

Stowe,  Mrs.  H.  B.,  letters  of,  89, 
109. 

Suffrage  for  women,  245. 

Sui  Generis,  33. 

Sumner,  Samuel  B. ,  poem  at  banquet 
given  Chief  Justice  Seymour,  141. 

Supreme  Court  reportership,  124. 

TABLE,  study  of  English  at,  337. 

Taxation,  232. 

Theological  Seminary,  Hartford,  311 

Theology,  281. 

Tilghman,  Frisbie,  39. 

Tillotson,    Rev.  Mr.,  peculiar  prayer 

at  opening  of  court,  130. 
Todd,  Dr.  Eli,  320,  322,  330. 
Toucey,  Isaac,  42,  224. 
Town-meetings  at  Farmington,  21. 
Treadwell,  Gov.  John,  16,  315,  321. 
Tyler,  Charles,  130. 


UNCLE  Tom's  Cabin,  341. 
Underground  railroad,  339. 
Unspirituality,  growth  in,  200. 
Upbuilding  of  a  state,  299. 

VERSE,  some  bits  of,  265. 
Village  life  at  Farmington,  19. 
Voyages,  10,  192. 

WADSWORTH,  Amos,  319. 

Warner,  Charles  D.,  171. 

Watching  with  sick  people,  190. 

Waterman,  N.  M.,  43. 

Weddings  at  Farmington,  331. 

Welch,  Henry  K.  W.,  123. 

Westminster  Review,  205. 

Welles,  Martin,  46. 

Whitman,  Lemuel,  20. 

Whittaker,  Henry,  72. 

Willard,     Frances     E.,     letter    from, 

175. 

Williams,  Austin  F.,  26. 
Williams   and    Storrs,    Chief-Justices, 

compared,  118. 
Woman,  the  ideal,  113. 
Woman  suffrage,  245. 
Women  founders  of     New    England, 

in  ;  poem  de,  112. 
Women,  progress  of,  279. 
World  police,  241. 
Wyckham,  William,  76. 

YOUNG  men,  appeal  to,  307. 


ERRATA. 

gth  page,  1 2th  line  from  bottom,  for  mother  read  mothers. 

72d  page,  1 2th  line,  for  a  letter  read  letters, 

iO4th  page,  loth  line,  for  1893  read  1883. 

i$2d  page,  8th  line,  f or  profession  read  procession. 


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